I teach several English Listening classes at a university in Taiwan and when I play the audio CD that came with the textbook, the students can’t understand anything because every dialog on the CD is at “natural speed” (the speed that English-speaking native speakers normally speak when they are talking to other native speakers).
Is there any kind of software (preferably freeware or trialware) that would let me play an audio CD at about half of the original speed, without distorting the pitch?
Thanks, Gary. I downloaded “Amazing Slow Downer”, and it really does slow down the sound without changing the pitch, but the trial version only lets you open the first two tracks of a CD or the first 25% of an audio file. Otherwise, it costs US$45 for the full version, which is a lot more than I was planning on spending. (Actually, I was hoping to not spend any money at all for this software.)
Does anyone know of another software for slowing down audio which is either free or very cheap?
If you know how to rip a CD, you can then use any decent audio editor to change the tempo.
Try Audacity, it’s free (open source).
Open the wav or mp3 files, select the part that you want to slow down, and choose Effect -> Change Tempo from the menu.
I just downloaded Audacity, and it works great! Thanks a lot!