Slow Down

I’m an impatient person. When I get my mind on something, I want to do it now. For anyone who’s played a musical instrument, you know that you’re not going to be able to play anything up to speed the first try. You must first slow down in order to play fast. This is something I’ve struggled with since I started playing guitar. Enter the Capo app from SuperMegaUltraGroovy. Put simply, Capo is software to slow down music.

There are other software applications to slow down music, some of which are quite good, but the thing I really like about Capo is its simplicity. Capo was seemingly created with a single purpose in mind: to help musicians slow down music to ease the learning process. I was up and running within seconds of installing Capo. Getting started was as simple as dragging a song onto the interface. And, the controls are intuitive and easy to use.

Capo has the ability to loop sections of songs to help you focus on just that section of music. Additionally, Capo supports markers, where you can place markers at important parts of a song. After marking a section of a song, you can jump directly to that section at a later time. You can even adjust the pitch of a song if needed.

Not surprisingly, Capo cannot play DRM-protected music, but since Apple lifted the DRM from songs in iTunes, that’s less of an issue now than it was a year ago. Additionally, Capo is Mac-only, so Windows users will need to use one of the alternatives, such as Transcribe! or the Amazing Slow Downer (both of which are cross platform).

Capo currently has an introductory price of $39, but the price will eventually be raised to $49. I can see Capo becoming an invaluable part of my practice routine. Highly recommended.

(Also see Jon’s review of Capo at Guitar Noize.)