2 Qs: Slow Downer & TrueFire

[41Gretsch]

Hi. Can anyone comment on the effectiveness of the slow downer? I am thinking of trying it. If you've used it, have you found it useful? What do you find is the best way to use it?

Also, has anyone used TrueFire.com? I like the looping video capability but have found the site generally frustrating as I can't find lessons with songs to learn, only snippets: licks, riffs, turnarounds, etc. I have not looked extensively though and want to know if I should. Has anyone found lessons with songs on TrueFire?

Finally, does anyone know where to download that kind of looping video capability so as to use it on lessons downloaded from youtube?

I've been playing 40 years but was largely dormant for a decade. Now I'm actively practicing, taking lessons again and want to expand my learning resources to something more efficient than $70/hr lessons (I'm in NYC).

Thanks in advance for any responses.

[JonPR]

I use Transcribe! for all my slowing and transcribing. It does cost money to register ($50), but you get the whole program (no restrictions) to trial for a month.
Plus it will work with video (I don't know of other slowdowners that do that).
It's a slight hassle in that it only works with MP4 and MOV files, so youtube files need to be downloaded and converted with another program (you can get free ones which will do that).
http://www.seventhstring.com/
Here's what it says about video:
http://www.seventhstring.com/xscribe/video.html

There's no affiliated lessons - it's just for manipulating audio files in various ways to help you learn a song yourself. You load in audio files, or it will record tracks in real time. If you're not experienced in learning songs by ear, start with something simple. (The site does have plenty of tips in how to approach it.)

[Brent Hutto]

I second Transcribe. It has the advantage over SlowDowner and most other softwares of not sounding completely like poo at 1/2 speed or less. At least it sounds on clean recordings without excessive reverb, generally reverberation sounds pretty bad slowed down just by the nature of what slowed-down reverb sounds like.

Anyway, it's not free and it's just a audio (and video?) tool. I don't have any use for lessons from YouTube, etc. but use Transcribe to slow down actual recordings of bands and individual artists all the time. And it does have your basic looping and so forth as well as a wide variety of EQ type features.

[41Gretsch]

Thanks for the lead. I'll check it out. I'm not able to transcribe, but if Transcribe! works as a looping slow-downer synched with looping video it will do exactly what I need.

Thanks again.

[rz1]

There's also Capo, but I believe it only works on Mac/OS X.

[Ozsi]

Originally Posted by 41Gretsch

Also, has anyone used TrueFire.com? I like the looping video capability but have found the site generally frustrating as I can't find lessons with songs to learn, only snippets: licks, riffs, turnarounds, etc. I have not looked extensively though and want to know if I should. Has anyone found lessons with songs on TrueFire?

A number of their (paid) courses teach full songs. Quite a bit of blues and ragtime fingerstyle stuff, some courses have more contemporary pieces, and there's also a number of electric guitar focussed courses too which contain, e.g. full rhythm and lead parts for various blues and jazz songs.

Two of the acoustic fingerstyle courses which are built around learning various complete songs are:

Fingerstyle Finesse
Fingerstyle Roots, Rags & Blues

That said, you're right that probably an equal number of courses don't teach full songs, but rather demonstrate the various techniques etc they are teaching through smaller, contrived parts, or improvisation over a backing track for example.

Simon.

[jhm-614]

I use the amazing slowdowner quite a bit -- more for learning electric leads than acoustic stuff -- but I like it. It does the job.

J.