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iPod How do I speed up playback on iPod or iTunes?

J

jlwillia

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 28, 2007
202
1
I use my iPod and Belkin TuneTalk to record class lectures for listening to later when studying for tests/finals. This works perfectly and I highly recommend it to anyone who may need to record lectures.

My problem, however, is that I would like to speed up the playback to 2x faster so that I can listen to it quicker than the actual lecture was to save time. Is there a way to do this either in iTunes or on my iPod? I have a 3rd generation iPod nano (the short, fat one).

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Select each individual recorded lecture, and press Command/Control+I, then under the 'Options' tab, change the media kind from 'Music' to 'Audiobook'. Unfortunately there is no way to do this for multiple files at once, so you have to do them one by one. Then, in your iPod's settings, change the audiobook playback speed to 'Faster'. It's probably not quite twice as fast, but it's an improvement.
 
Tom B. said:
Select each individual recorded lecture, and press Command/Control+I, then under the 'Options' tab, change the media kind from 'Music' to 'Audiobook'. Unfortunately there is no way to do this for multiple files at once, so you have to do them one by one. Then, in your iPod's settings, change the audiobook playback speed to 'Faster'. It's probably not quite twice as fast, but it's an improvement.
Click to expand...

Thanks Tom. This is definitely much better. I think this setting must recognize the pauses and cuts them out. By doing so, it doesn't affect the pitch of the recorded voice. However, I still wish there was an option to just speed it up regardless of what it would do to the pitch. I realize this wouldn't be good for most people, but would be a nice feature for some. That way, I could listen to those 50 minute lectures in 20 minutes by cutting out the pauses and speeding up the remaining portion.

Anyway, thanks again Tom!
 
Are there any controls or add-ons to iTunes that allows you to slow playback of a song down? I'm trying to learn a fast one and I'd like to hear it s-l-o-w. How about other free software? Are there any free MP3 players that will do this?
Thanks!
 
Audacity

Audacity is free and open source. You can speed up or slow down mp3s using the "change tempo" effect. The only problem is it takes time to import the file, process it (change tempo), and export it as an mp3. It is not a real time solution like the faster audio playback on the ipod, but it gives you the option of how fast you want the audio. For me, I listen to recorded content at about 50% or 60% and text to speech content at about 80%.
 
Quicktime also lets you speed up and slow down playback provided you're listening on your computer, not on an ipod. Right click on a file or podcast in iTunes and click Show file/Show in explorer, then open it in Quicktime and go to Window - Show A/V controls and there's a Playback Speed slider at the bottom. I use this to speed up video podcasts when watching them on my computer.
 
Quicktime is a great idea

bluedaisy said:
Quicktime also lets you speed up and slow down playback provided you're listening on your computer, not on an ipod. Right click on a file or podcast in iTunes and click Show file/Show in explorer, then open it in Quicktime and go to Window - Show A/V controls and there's a Playback Speed slider at the bottom. I use this to speed up video podcasts when watching them on my computer.
Click to expand...

Thanks bluedaisy. nice, easy workaround. I will def be using this now
 
bluedaisy said:
open it in Quicktime and go to Window - Show A/V controls and there's a Playback Speed slider at the bottom. I use this to speed up video podcasts when watching them on my computer.
Click to expand...

my quicktime player doesn't have this window / option. Do I need to get a different version or something?
 
An old, but handy post

Thank you for a great tip. I have my sons listening to some teachings on an old Ipod 3. Turning the teachings into audiobooks cut them down to 2/3 their original length. Perfect trick.

Thanks
 
I love speed listening of various audio books and podcasts, training materials, etc on my iPod + iPad. Just because the built-in feature is quite limited, I usually pre-convert audio files before loading them to a player, using Audio speed changer (unfortunately, Win only is supported). And yes, it's very flexible - lets to speed up/slow down not only to 2X and 1/2X, but to any value within the enabled range, without affecting playback pitch.
 
Last edited:
Audacity

It'll do exactly what yer after in terms of speeding up a lecture. I use it to convert mp4 to mp3 and then speed up. Actually it does a lot of cool things. One of the coolest apps for tinkering with sound files I've found.
 
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