Variable speed playback with pitch correction for the Fuze and Clip?

There are many people such as myself who use a player more frequently for playing audiobooks, podcasts, or lectures than for music. For us, variable speed playback( from half to double speed) with pitch correction is one of the most desired features. I realize this is not easy to program, however it is very important to us.

No comments?

I have been thinking about buying an mp3 recorder for use as a player rather than buying another player, since the model I found has variable speed playback, a card slot, a microphone jack, and runs for 51 hours on two  nimh rechargeable AAA batteries. Sandisk,why can’t you make something like this, only better, or perhaps cheaper?

JK- what manufacturer/model are you looking at?

I was thinking about buying the Olympus DM-420 mp3 recorder. I can’t find any good reviews on it discussing its abilities as a player. I think you can download the manual for it at the Olympus website.

At the risk of sounding like an evangelist, Rockbox has “timestretch” features, so that you can vary speed and pitch independently of each other, and in small (percentage) increments.

So you can speed up podcasts and audiobooks without changing the pitch. It doesn’t work too well with music, but it’s fine for voice recordings.

I can’t say what extra demands this places on the CPU, or how it affects battery life, but it just goes to show that it’s achievable and it’s been done already.

njd wrote:

At the risk of sounding like an evangelist, Rockbox has “timestretch” features, so that you can vary speed and pitch independently of each other, and in small (percentage) increments.

 

So you can speed up podcasts and audiobooks without changing the pitch. It doesn’t work too well with music, but it’s fine for voice recordings.

 

I can’t say what extra demands this places on the CPU, or how it affects battery life, but it just goes to show that it’s achievable and it’s been done already.

 

Yes, the only way JK98 will get this feature is if he tries Rockbox. I’m using it now on one of my Clip+'s, and my V1 Fuze, but I have no need of variable speeds or pitch correction, so I can’t comment on how those features work. But the sound settings are light-years better.:wink:

I have been thinking about Rockboxing my Clip, but don’t want to Rockbox the Fuze and Clip+ as I don’t want to lose Slotradio capability on those. I guess I wouldn’t be that upset if I bricked my Clip, however I don’t want to risk a Fuze or Clip+.

Battery life is a concern though especially when using fast playback.

JK98 wrote:

I have been thinking about Rockboxing my Clip, but don’t want to Rockbox the Fuze and Clip+ as I don’t want to lose Slotradio capability on those.

Couldn’t you just boot into the OF when you want to listen to your SlotRadio cards?

I saw it mentioned that once Rockbox is put on a player it loses its ability to play DRM music perhaps even permanently. I assume it applies to Slotradio as well. I have not seen any posts saying that Slotradio cards will work on a Rockboxed player when it is booted with the original firmware.

JK98 wrote:
I saw it mentioned that once Rockbox is put on a player it loses its ability to play DRM music perhaps even permanently. I assume it applies to Slotradio as well.

Perhaps, but I think that was reported during the initail phases of Rockbox development for the e200v2, Fuze, Clip/Clip+ family of players. I believe I read later that people were not experiencing this problem as the builds progressed, so it may not even be an issue now.

JK98 wrote:
I have not seen any posts saying that Slotradio cards will work on a Rockboxed player when it is booted with the original firmware.

True enough, but I haven’t seen any that say they won’t either.

Yes, that was early-on information, and there was at least one report by a user since then that it (no longer) is the case.  Having said that, I haven’t seen any definitive statement on this issue at the Rockbox site, and the site still notes: 

Installation of a bootloader may or may not permanently disable DRM support, even if you uninstall it (this is an early and old problem, but there are reports that this may not be the case anymore, it might be related to the date/time setting).

Miikerman wrote:

Yes, that was early-on information, and there was at least one report by a user since then that it (no longer) is the case.  Having said that, I haven’t seen any definitive statement on this issue at the Rockbox site, and the site still notes: 

Installation of a bootloader may or may not permanently disable DRM support, even if you uninstall it (this is an early and old problem, but there are reports that this may not be the case anymore, it might be related to the date/time setting).

I’m sure this is still there as a CYA issue.

Indeed it could be.  But good to note.

JK98 wrote:
I saw it mentioned that once Rockbox is put on a player it loses its ability to play DRM music perhaps even permanently. I assume it applies to Slotradio as well. I have not seen any posts saying that Slotradio cards will work on a Rockboxed player when it is booted with the original firmware.

Well, I would test it out, but I have no Slotradio cards…and I can’t say they are on my shopping list.

How about a DRM’ed tune?

Miikerman wrote:
How about a DRM’ed tune?

Nope, don’t have any of them either.:smiley:

Miikerman wrote:
How about a DRM’ed tune?

Smiley

JK98, I’ve started looking at digital recorders again.  Looks like the Zoom H4n is close to the top of the heap in terms of features and value for the money.  Street price under $300.  External mics, onboard variable coverage mics, etc, etc. I’m tempted.

If you don’t mind spending around $300 then I guess it is okay. I was looking at the Zoom H2 a while back. I think it is down to around $125 now. I have read that the built in mics on the H2 aren’t bad, and the line in is good, but the mic jack is quite noisy. There is a new model the H1, which lists for just $100. I can’t get that much information on it yet.

Olympus just came out with new recorders, the WS-710M and WS-700M. They will record in pcm, mp3, or wma. They run on one AAA battery and have a micro SDHC card slot. They seem to not have any sorting by tags or shuffle feature, so even if their playback sound quality is great, they might not suit many people for use as music players. They have a mic jack, but no line in. Most of the recording I would want to do is voice recording and not music. It would be nice to find a good hybrid of a recorder(and voice recorder) and an mp3 player(that is also good at playing voice recordings, which also means having sound enhancements to make low quality voice recordings more intelligible like the Olympus voice recorders have) with high quality for both, but it seems like devices skimp on quality or features for one aspect or the other. :frowning: