"Slowing down the tape speed"

[bsmith23]

Just got a piano that I'll need to have tuned a couple times before it's in tune relative to A-440 - right now it's almost 437. I'd love to start recording with it, but am not sure how to do this as one would with tape, slowing down the speed to get it in tune while recording. Surely there is a way to do this? I realize it's also probably doable with elastic pitch applied to all the other tracks while recording the piano (which I'd also like to figure out), but would love to know how to just do it by speed for other applications like half speed guitar, etc... The prospect of tuning all other instruments to slightly flat of 437 doesn't sound fun.

[albee1952]

I would get Serato Pitch n Time and go ahead and record the piano. Serato can change the pitch with excellent results as long as you don't get silly(like transposing 4-5 steps). Or maybe get Melodyne Studio, which is a really good tuning and pitch correction plugin that you will likely get a lot of use out of. I tune vocals with it and the results are excellent(way better than AutoTune IMHO). Otherwise, I would just wait till its tuned right.

[TOM@METRO]

+1 for Pitch 'n Time Pro.

[daeron80]

But bsmith probably needs to hear the current tracks slowed down to the piano's current pitch, just as if you were slowing down a tape machine a little, right. In that case, you're changing pitch and time together, so no need for any fancy changing of pitch in tempo. That would just make a mess. I would:

1. duplicate all tracks
2. apply Time Shift in Varispeed mode to all material - 99.32%
3. record the piano
4. switch back to original tracks
5. apply Time Shift to a duplicate of the piano track in Varispeed mode - 100.69%

(As you probably know, the percentages are found by dividing one frequency by the other.)

[bsmith23]

Thanks for all the excellent advice - Daeron, I'd kind of stumbled partially on your solution in the reference - thanks for getting me the rest of the way there!

[bsmith23]

Just had it tuned, and they were very very flat before - bringing it all the way up to tune relative to a440 would be risking breaking strings, so it needs to be stepped up a few times over a few months. I think the next tuning in 3 or 4 months should get it there though. But hey, $350 delivered for a piano in really good shape, I can deal with the tuning hassles for a few months!

[audioboffin]

If you can wait I'm pretty sure you will be happier with the result than using any of the pitch shifting software.