The Amazing Slow Downer vs. Transcribe! music software

[themadhatter]

If this is the wrong place for this post, or if it's altogether inappropriate, I'm sure it will be moderated accordingly.

I'd like to post a warning!

First I must emphasize that this is absolutely 100% not a criticism of Feadoggie or his post above.

I hadn't heard of TwelveKeys until he mentioned it, so I checked it out and it looked good. It was also being offered at half-price until the end of August. So, after a bit of thought, I bought it. Perhaps I should have downloaded the trial first, but I was fairly sure I wanted it. After purchasing, I did download. As soon as I had finished, my anti-virus software told me that the download contained a number of trojans and worms. Later it told me the software was trying access password protected files. So I restored my system to before the download, and I think I've cleaned things up, but I'm obviously concerned that information may have been gleaned before I restored.

I thought I should mention this in case anyone else is tempted to try it. I've contacted the vendor but haven't had a reply yet.

Clearly this is my come-uppance for wanting to cheat!

[themadhatter]

Update :

It seems that some other users of the same anti-virus software have discovered that it classifies parts of TwelveKeys and other software from nch as viruses or trojans and that this prevents complete download. nch have acknowledged my e-mail but I'm still waiting for further information from them, and from Kaspersky. So I'm not much further forward and still don't know whom to believe.

Maybe my warning was redundant - I hope so; my assumption was in any case that it was not nch who were responsible (which is why I e-mailed them, to alert them) though I'm not now sure that this was clear from my previous post. If anyone else has had a similar difficulty, I'd appreciate some information about how they resolved it. Thanks.

Edit to include final (I hope) outcome : after corresponding with both Kaspersky and nch, it seems that the Kaspersky Proactive Defence Monitor quarantines things that resemble trojans and that sometimes it subsequently decrees them to be clean. There is something about nch software which triggers this response regularly. This may be resolved at some point, but meanwhile I think I should rephrase my warning:

If you are using Kaspersky anti-virus, you may find that it is over-zealous occasionally. This is much better than being under-zealous, I think, but if you are as neurotic as I am, knowing this may help while you wait for it to update its opinion.

[nimbleswitch]

Amazing Slowdowner does work in Mac and has for many years. I currently use Amazing Slowdowner on my Macbook and I also use the iPhone version as well. It changes the pitch and/or speed on the fly and the sound quality of the processed music is excellent.

But I also am curious as to what Transcribe! has to offer that I don't already have with Amazing Slowdowner. There is no wave-form view in Amazing Slowdowner, but I use Audacity for that kind of work and can't see why I would want them all in one program. As a practice play-along tool for a musician (which is mostly how I use it), the Amazing Slowdowner seems to have a cleaner GUI without it.

Amazing Slowdowner can save and store any number of loops (with or without up to 99 repetitions) so that makes it easy to practice the "hard parts" of charts over many practice sessions. Amazing Slowdowner doesn't appear to handle video files directly, that I know of, but video files can very easily be converted to audio files with other programs I have, so . . .

Anyone else have any reasons for going with one or the other? (Transcribe! is still $10 cheaper, I think, so I guess that's one.) More importantly to me, really: Is there a good reason for buying Transcribe! when I already am using Amazing Slowdowner and Audacity and format conversion programs?

[MTGuru]

There is no wave-form view in Amazing Slowdowner, but I use Audacity for that kind of work and can't see why I would want them all in one program. As a practice play-along tool for a musician (which is mostly how I use it), the Amazing Slowdowner seems to have a cleaner GUI without it.

To address just that point:

I find the Transcribe waveform display very useful for discerning phrasing and articulation. You can often distinguish clean breaks, and legato vs. staccato by using the display as a visual reinforcement of what you're hearing, at a level of granularity that might be difficult to perceive by ear alone. The waveform also makes it easy to zero in on a particular bit; for example, when you do a pitch or harmonic analysis. And when you don't want/need the display, you can easily hide it for a cleaner look.

Yes, you can do all that in a separate audio editor like Audacity. But it's convenient to have it all together with your basic slowdown functions.

Is there a good reason for buying Transcribe! when I already am using Amazing Slowdowner and Audacity and format conversion programs?

If you're happy with the suite of tools you have, probably not. But the Transcribe download does give you a 30-day free trial if you want to check it out.

[nimbleswitch]

From what I can so-far tell from working with each of them myself:

For practicing with play-alongs: Amazing Slowdowner. (It lets you import a whole gig's playlist and does everything on the fly.)
For transcribing by ear: Transcribe! (It has a wave form window and does everything on the fly.)
For editing files: Audacity. (It has a wave form window and myriad music file editing features.)

I use Amazing Slowdowner for daily practice with a list of play-along files or a CD. I use Transcribe! for picking out notes by ear from a tune on an audio or video file. I use Audacity for turning a 20-second audio exercise file into a four-minute audio exercise file.

Transcribe!, Amazing Slowdowner, and Audacity will all change the tempo and/or pitch, and loop--and they all work with Youtube video files. But each has features that make them better for different purposes. Transcribe! and Amazing Slowdowner have trial versions, and Audacity is free period. So try them each out at various tasks and you'll see what I mean.