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  3. Audio Speed Changer
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Audio Speed Changer

Change tempo from 0.25x to 4x with WSOLA, holding pitch to within half a cent, or let pitch move with it like tape. Measures the output and shows how far the pitch actually went.

Audio processed on your deviceMore audio processingJump to full guide

Related reading

  • Time-Stretching Audio Without Changing Its Pitch12 min read
  • Encoding MP3 in the Browser with lamejs10 min read

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Audio Speed Changer: a worked example

A lecture recording is too slow to review and you want 1.5x without chipmunk pitch.

Input

tone-440.wav (4.0000 s) - 1.5x - preserve pitch
What Audio Speed Changer produces

Output

2.6667 s, pitch measured at 439.87 Hz: half a cent from where it started

WSOLA slides each output frame to where it best continues the one before it, so the tempo changes and the waveform shape survives. The figure above is measured out of the exported file. The plain overlap-add this replaced put the same request 158 cents flat, a minor third out of tune, with more noise than signal.

About the Audio Speed Changer

Speed up or slow down audio from 0.25x to 4x, keeping the pitch where it is or letting it move with the tempo like tape. Pitch-preserving mode holds the pitch to within half a cent, measured, and the tool shows you that measurement rather than asking you to take its word for it.

How to use

  1. 1Upload an audio file
  2. 2Move the speed slider to your target rate, or tap a preset
  3. 3Leave Preserve Pitch on to change tempo only, or turn it off for the tape effect
  4. 4Check the Measured Result panel, then preview
  5. 5Choose WAV or MP3 and download

Key features

  • Speed range from 0.25x to 4x in steps of 0.05
  • WSOLA pitch-preserving stretch, measured within half a cent at 0.5x, 1.5x and 2x
  • Output duration lands exactly on input duration divided by speed
  • Vari-speed mode band-limited before resampling, putting fold-back 103 dB down
  • Measured Result panel that analyses the output and reports how far the pitch moved
  • Preview plays the processed audio, so it matches the exported file
  • Runs in a Web Worker with a progress bar and a working Cancel button
  • Export 16-bit WAV or 192 kbps MP3 at the source sample rate

Tips & best practices

  • Preserve Pitch is on by default and is the mode most people want: it is what makes a 1.5x podcast still sound like a person.
  • Watch the Pitch moved reading. In pitch-preserving mode it should sit within a couple of cents of zero; if the material has no clear pitch the panel says so rather than inventing a number.
  • Vari-speed is the right choice when you want the tape effect on purpose. It is also the faster path, since it is a filter and a read rather than a full similarity search.
  • Export WAV if the source was lossless. Re-encoding to MP3 after a stretch stacks a second generation of lossy artefacts on the first.
  • Very large ratios still soften transients, because any time stretch has to invent the material between the original frames. Between 0.5x and 2x is where it is cleanest.

Examples

  • Speed up a podcast without chipmunk voices

    Load the episode, leave Preserve Pitch on, and pick 1.5x. The runtime drops to two thirds and the Measured Result panel confirms the pitch has not moved. The preview plays the same processed audio the download contains.

  • Slow audio for transcription

    Set 0.5x with Preserve Pitch on to double the duration at the original pitch: measured at 440.12 Hz from a 440 Hz source. Turn Preserve Pitch off instead if you want the deliberate slowed-down, lower-pitched tape sound.

  • Vari-speed without the whistle

    Turn Preserve Pitch off and set 2x on material with real top end. Everything moves up an octave as it should, and the content pushed past Nyquist is filtered out rather than folding back as a 14 kHz tone.

When to use it

  • Transcription

    Slow down fast speech to catch every word while typing, without the pitch dropping.

  • Language learning

    Reduce playback speed on foreign-language audio to better follow pronunciation.

  • Music practice

    Slow a difficult passage down to practice at a comfortable tempo before building back up.

  • Time fitting

    Speed up a voiceover slightly to fit a fixed video duration without re-recording.

How it works

Speed runs from 0.25x to 4x on a slider in steps of 0.05, with one-tap presets at 0.5x, 0.75x, 1x, 1.25x, 1.5x and 2x, and two genuinely different processing paths behind the Preserve Pitch switch.

With Preserve Pitch on, tempo is changed by WSOLA (waveform similarity overlap-add): each output frame is slid to the position where it best continues the frame before it, so a sustained note keeps its waveform shape instead of beating against the grain boundaries. Measured on a 440 Hz reference driven through the browser, 2x reads 440.02 Hz, 0.5x reads 440.12 Hz and 1.5x reads 439.87 Hz, all within half a cent of no change at all, with the output duration landing exactly on input duration divided by speed.

That replaced a plain overlap-add with no similarity search, and the numbers it produced are worth stating because this is the mode the tool exists for: at 2x it moved the pitch 36 cents sharp, at 0.5x it landed 145 cents sharp with more noise than signal, and at 1.5x it fell 158 cents flat, a minor third out of tune. It also summed its Hann windows to roughly twice unity and then normalised each channel independently, so levels moved and stereo images shifted.

With Preserve Pitch off you get vari-speed, the tape-machine behaviour: pitch and tempo move together, 2x raises everything an octave and 0.5x drops it one. Reading a buffer faster pushes high frequencies past Nyquist, and unless they are removed first they fold back down into the audible range as a whistle that was never in the recording. A 15 kHz tone at 2x used to reappear at 14.1 kHz just 3.5 dB below the wanted signal; the audio is now band-limited by a zero-phase Butterworth cascade before it is read, which puts that fold-back 103 dB down while leaving the passband flat to within 0.03 dB.

The preview plays the processed audio in both modes. Previously it always used the browser playbackRate, which is the tape path, so turning Preserve Pitch on changed nothing you could hear until after the download. The stretch runs in a Web Worker with a progress bar and a Cancel button that genuinely stops it, and the Measured Result panel analyses the rendered audio afterwards and reports how far the pitch actually moved: close to zero cents in pitch-preserving mode, and about 1200 cents at 2x in vari-speed. Export is a 16-bit WAV or a 192 kbps MP3, at the source sample rate.

Frequently asked questions

Does changing speed affect pitch?

Not with Preserve Pitch on, which is the default. Measured on a 440 Hz reference, 2x comes back at 440.02 Hz and 0.5x at 440.12 Hz. With it off, pitch rises when sped up and drops when slowed down, like a tape machine.

How do I know the pitch really did not move?

The Measured Result panel runs a Fourier analysis over the rendered audio and reports the shift in cents. It is measuring the output, not restating the setting, so if the stretch ever went wrong the number would say so.

Is there quality loss at extreme speeds?

Any time stretch has to invent material between the original frames, so transients soften as the ratio grows. Between 0.5x and 2x is cleanest. Pitch accuracy holds across the whole range; it is the timbre that suffers, not the tuning.

Does the preview match the download?

Yes, in both modes. The preview plays the same processed buffer that gets exported. That was not true before: the preview used to be tape-style even with Preserve Pitch on.

Can I adjust speed for just part of a file?

This tool applies a uniform speed change. To adjust only a section, trim it first with the Audio Trimmer, change speed, then merge it back.

Related tools and how they differ

  • Audio Pitch Shifter: Shifts pitch up or down by semitones and cents while keeping length the same; use it for musical transposition or tuning, not for changing speed.
  • Audio Trimmer & Cutter: Cuts a section out first if you only want part of a file at a different speed.

Further reading

  • Time-Stretching Audio Without Changing Its Pitch12 min read
  • Encoding MP3 in the Browser with lamejs10 min read

Private by design

Audio is decoded and processed locally with the Web Audio API. Your files are never uploaded to a server.