Slowing down (time stretchng) a piece of a project?

mjbphotos

mjbphotos

Moderator
Could not really find anything in the user manual.

I want to take the middle lead part of a project - already recorded - and slow down part of it. I selected the 'loop' of time and all the tracks, but Reaper doesn't seem to want to do a 'time stretch' like this. Of course I want to preserve pitch.
Is the only way to do it to split all the tracks at the two locations, adjust the EZD/song tempo for this section by adding a couple of tempo changes, then drag-stretch all the split sections of the tracks?
The problem in doing it this way is I'm not sure of the exact tempo change I want, so it could get pretty tedious.
 
Mike,

This may not help what you are trying to do to multiple tracks with different tempos. However, I hover over the track/ hit F2 to open Media Item Properties, and look about half-way down the dialogue box to make sure "Preserve Pitch" is toggled on. Then to stretch the time while preserving pitch, move your mouse to the end of the track to get the double-arrow drag symbol/ press and hold ALT (turn to grabbing hand) to stretch time. I do this often to get my radio commercials right at the 29.5 second mark, in case I ran a bit short or long. Major stretches or shortenings will change pitch some.

Dale
 
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Thanks Dale, that's good for a single track (the whole thing).

I tried the method shown above, but what a mess. When you change the tempo (first) it messes up all the tracks. I only had 3 'live' during the section I wanted to slow down (bass, rhythm guitar and lead guitar), but it sounded like shite, so I gave up on it.

I guess I could have copied those tracks to a new project, done the slow down, then pasted them back in to a tailored blank area? Or I could go back and re-record that part of the song ...
 
Fixing it in post is almost always going to much more work (and sound worse) than just going back and tracking it correctly.

Alt+stretching tracks is the only way I know of to change their speed without changing pitch, but there are obviously technical limitations to it.
You may get better results if you split the track up into smaller tracks (move the cursor where you want it and press "s") and stretch those individually.

You'll probably get the best results by retracking if at all possible.
 
mjbphotos said:
I tried the method shown above, but what a mess.
Click to expand...

After re-reading your post, I felt like you were working with multiple tracks, and that my input was not going to help. However, I agree on the mess!
 
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Is there a way to scale it? I am trying to slow the Music to be Born by from the speed of a babies heart to the speed of an adult heart. This is both an experiment and a learning assignment I gave my self.
 
This is an old thread, but we now have the ability to automate the master play rate. Idk off the top of my head how to make that happen, but I know it's there.

If its just a single track, and you just want a simple static rate change, alt+drag the right edge of the item. It'll show a little pop up which displays the new playrate.
 
ashcat_lt said:
This is an old thread, but we now have the ability to automate the master play rate. Idk off the top of my head how to make that happen, but I know it's there.

If its just a single track, and you just want a simple static rate change, alt+drag the right edge of the item. It'll show a little pop up which displays the new playrate.
Click to expand...

This works with multiple tracks as well . . . select the tracks in the area you want to stretch, then alt drag the lot in one go.
 
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