Itunes Playback Speed Mac

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. Put simply, to speed up or slow down your iTunes playback, an option otherwise notably absent on macOS. If this sounds surprisingly succinct or sober to you, that’s because it is.

Itunes On Pc Playback Speed
Itunes Playback Speed Macbook
Itunes Playback Speed Windows

You can also vary the playback speed of audio podcast and iTunes U episodes on your iOS devices or the sixth-generation iPod nano. This works in the same manner as it does for audiobooks: Simply tap the artwork to bring up the extended controls and tap the “1X” button in the top-right corner of the screen to toggle between double-speed. This is in the Speed pop-out menu. This will speed up your playback rate, and play your audio file faster. The Faster option can cause music to sound distorted, so select the Faster (fine) option if you want to listen to music at a balanced speed. Alternatively, you can also slow down your song by selecting Slower here.

Listen to podcasts at 1.5x speed | 45 comments | Create New Account

Click here to return to the 'Listen to podcasts at 1.5x speed' hint

The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.

Great hint, ta! I had to put my script in my user's Library -> iTunes -> Scripts folder before this would work, BTW, perhaps because I have some existing scripts there?

Ahh, right, for iTunes, it can also use a separate folder. I have the applescript menu enabled, so I can access general applescripts at all times and specific applescripts per application. You are correct for iTunes, for people who don't have the Applescript menu enabled.

Coooool!
Although I like hearing at a rate of 1.33, this is more comfortable for me.
Cheers,
Claudio
---
- claudio

...if you switch to Full-Screen-Mode, the rate switches back to 1.0
---
- claudio

Apparently, setting the playback rate from Applescript doesn't affect the GUI you get on command-K. So, if you want to mess with the GUI, pull up command-K, then set 'playback rate' to whatever you want, then hit full screen.

QuickTime's AV control can adjust pitch shift, treble, etc. I found lower those values help.
Can that be scripted?
I have some reason for not upgrading to 10.4. For example, diskutil's restore to firewire drives working for me in 10.3 but not in 10.4.
Thanks for the script(s)!

I'm pretty sure that converting the podcast to AAC (if it isn't already in AAC), and renaming the extension to .m4b will make it look like an audiobook to the iPod. Therefore, if you're listening to a podcast on a 4G iPod or newer, you should be able to speed up playback like you can with audiobooks.
Can anyone confirm? I don't have a 4G iPod (I have a 3G).
Anyone else also think that speeding up playback should be an option in the next version of iTunes?

This didn't work for me. But I am a newbie to the iPod and file manipulation. For the record I converted a mp3 recorded Internet Radio broadcast to AAC, and then changed extension to m4b and didn't show as Audio Book, but still showed up as Music. Nano for Christmas and I'm trying to figure out the smoothest way to get Podcasts to my Nano. The ones I can subscribe to seem to work well. But the Internet Radio I have to record is more work. I'm trying the free solutions first. RadioRecorder seems to function, but with my PowerMac I have to prevent sleep which is less than ideal. Also with my local NPR station I'm getting frequent drop outs which sometimes causes the Nano to stop (and not restart). At a minimum are quite irritating. Maybe it's because I'm using my Mac while recording. More work to do.

---
Hermosa Beach, CA USA

Actually, you need to change the extention to m4b plus use a tool like Super Get Info (http://www.barebones.com/products/super/index.shtml) to change its system extension to m4b. Doing this and adding artwork if the file is already on your iPod will update it and make it an audiobook..

Very cool!! Try listening to a song for fun... you'll hear hysterical singers!

pitch is unaffected, for real?

pitch is unaffected, for real?
Yep, it works exactly as advertised. Handy script, cheers merlyn.

Testing an mp3 podcast (Harry Shearer's Le Show) on iTunes 4.9 on Mac OS X 10.3.9, with QuickTime Player 6.5.2, results in higher pitched playback, not time compression.

Ahh, so tiger is better on this. No surprise. Time to upgrade!

I added these lines so the user can input the speed each time the script is run, just change '1.5' to 'rate' in the original script.

tell application 'Finder'

set ans to '
display dialog 'Enter Rate:' default answer ans buttons {'OK'} default button 1
set ans to text returned of the result
set rate to ans * 1

end tellCorrection... Add this between the iTunes and Quicktime paragraphs and change '1.5' to 'speed'.

tell application 'Finder'

end tell

Listen to podcasts at 1.33x speed and at same volume

Here is a version that:
- gets rid of one or two bugs in the above lines

- keeps same volume setting between iTunes and QuickTime player
- allows for manual entry of rate (default is 1.33) (we don't need the Finder for the dialog!)
- brings QuickTime player to front, so you can stop/close if need be.
As usual, paste Script Editor, save in ~/Library/iTunes/Scripts/ (or somewhere else if your script menu is activated, but then this works too)

---
iMac G4 17 800/512/80 + powerbook firewire G3 500/512/30

Listen to podcasts at 1.33x speed and at same volume

maintain same volume only works when 'Sound Check' is enabled in iTunes preferences playback setting. For those with 'Sound Check' disabled need to delete the lines where set sound volume.
Thanks for the tips

Listen to podcasts at 1.33x speed and at same volume

the ranges of sound volume differ between iTune and QTime.
thus,
set sound volume of my_movie to 256 * (currentVolume / 100)
as iTune has min 0 and max 100 while QTime has 256 as 100%.
here is my reversion:

 tell application 'iTunes'
 play -- in case not already playing
 pause
 set currentVolume to sound volume
 set my_track to location of current track
 set my_seconds to player position
 end tell
 set speed to '1.33'
 display dialog 'Enter Rate (0.50 ~ 3.00):' default answer speed buttons {'OK'} default button 1
 set speed to text returned of the result
 tell application 'QuickTime Player'
 set show av controls window to true
 set show equalizer to true
 set show movie info window to true
 open my_track
 set my_movie to first movie
 set sound volume of my_movie to 256 * (currentVolume / 100)
 set rate of my_movie to speed
 set treble gain of my_movie to -100
 set current time of my_movie to (my_seconds * (time scale of my_movie))
 end tell
 display dialog 'Click OK to return to 1x:' buttons {'OK'} default button 1
 tell application 'QuickTime Player'
 set my_movie to first movie
 set my_seconds to ((current time of my_movie) / (time scale of my_movie))
 set auto play of my_movie to false
 set auto present of my_movie to false
 set auto quit when done of my_movie to true
 close my_movie
 end tell
 tell application 'iTunes'
 set player position to my_seconds
 play
 end tell

This is fabulous! I emailed Apple some time ago asking if this could be built into iTunes as a standard feature for just this reason. Now, do you know of a way to make this work with DVD Player 4.6? As far as I can tell, DVD Player only allows integer values for the playback speed.

without this AppleScript specifying an incremental increase of 1 for the playcount, listeners will end up with podcast playlists that iTunes thinks contains many unplayed podcasts which in turn will eventually auto unsubscibe in iTunes..

Here's a companion script to stop the one playing in Quicktime and resume the one in iTunes right where you've gotten to while listening to it in Quicktime. Limitations are that you need to keep the track of interest as the current track in iTunes. So far, this doesn't have error checking to make sure of this. If you finish the podcast in Quicktime, it leaves it at the end, so when you run this script, it will set the play time to the end, which makes it jump back to the beginning and increment the play count in iTunes.

Actually, that 'pause' in the first tell should not be there, but it doesn't matter.

The whole first tell block can be removed. You need to talk to Quicktime Player to stop it and get the current seconds, then talk to iTunes to set the current track to that. Simple!

Hey, thanks! I don't know why I didn't see that.

does anyone know of a way to change the pitch of something in itunes?

Not in iTunes, but with the Developer Tools installed, look for the 'AU Lab' Application, and you can do it for free. It's a bit tricky, and maybe deserves a hint of its own, so I'll write it up and submit it when I get a chance.

Put in a negative number and you can even play the song backwards!

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Great hint.
Did you know that if you speed up learning tapes, the mind processing the info better and faster. The way to learn complicated info is to hear is as fast as you can.

Fantastic hints, both the original and the companion to switch back to iTunes. Couldn't get the script to work that prompts for the speed however, which would be nice.
Would it be possible to script Quicktime to use the same volume adjustment that iTunes applied? When Quicktime takes over, on mine, the sound is much lower. A GetInfo on the track in itunes showed the sound set at +6.6db in the Summary tab, which I guess happened b/c I enabled Sound Enhancer or Sound Check pref's in itunes. Displaying Movie Properties in Quicktime does show a volume slider that maxes out at +6db.
Again thanks for sharing these tips,
tom

Itunes On Pc Playback Speed

I speed up movies with MPlayer (just hit ']' and '[' to speed up/slow down by 10%) and use Audio Hijack Pro to correct the pitch. This works really well.

This is also really useful for movies, that really don't play well in iTunes for me. If you modify the script to make 1x, you can use it to view your iTunes in QuickTime, just by selecting the script from the menu. Cool!

I just realized that PC users can have an even better experience listening to podcasts than Mac users. If you use podcasts.yahoo.com to listen to podcasts, they even have a feature on the web UI where you can click to speed podcasts up to 2.0x. Plus, it's good to have all those audio files stored away on someone else's computer so you don't have to burden your own hard drive (of course, you wouldn't be able to listen offline but you can click 'download' episode if you want).
Of course, since yahoo podcasts use a windows media plugin for streaming, you can't access them on a Mac unless you click a few times---additionally, the speed feature is not accessible either.
Get a clue, Apple! You seem to be good at leading innovation but amount to dogsh*t when it comes to listening to user feedback.

I was using the above AppleScript on my Mac. I am moving my iTunes library to Windows XP, so I created the below script to do the same thing for iTunes on Windows.

Copy and paste the code into NotePad, save as '1.4SpeedPodcast.js,' and double-click the file to execute it. You need to have Windows Script support installed. This is downloaded from Microsoft.com if you don't already have it.

Itunes Playback Speed Macbook

I added the try statement to allow for the selected track to play if nothing is currently playing. I use iTunes' sound check, which inevitably lowers the volume of all of my tracks, so I also set QT Player's volume lower. I also like the player brought to the front.
tell application 'iTunes'
try
pause
set my_track to location of current track
set my_seconds to player position
on error
set my_track to location of item 1 of selection
set my_seconds to 0
end try
end tell
tell application 'QuickTime Player'
open my_track
set my_movie to first document
set sound volume of my_movie to 128 --set volume to 50%
set ts to time scale of my_movie
set current time of my_movie to my_seconds * ts
set rate of my_movie to 1.5 -- starts playing
activate
end tell

To play audio faster (or convert it that way) using the command line you could use sox (http://sox.sourceforge.net/). In theory you could install it from MacPorts (sudo port install sox), but in practice in order to support MP3 format you have to compile it from source code with MAD and LAME libraries. MacPorts version supports many other formats for example AIF, so you can give it a go. Should there be any interest, I could make a tutorial on this.

Oh, and there is yet another way to accomplish this with mplayer: http://mark.santaniello.com/archives/260

This has stopped working for me with Snow Leopard. Anyone know how to fix it to work?

This seemed to fix it for me.

On second thought, I took out the time scale part, instead of replacing it with rate (that wasn't quite right). This seems to work:

Thanks a lot for these scripts.
I would like to use a player like Movist who allows to keep the video window in front of all other windows. So I tried to adapt the script, but it seems that Movist doesn't understand it. Or my appplescript knowledge is too limited anyway.
Can anyone modify the script so that Movist or another player who offers a floating window understands it?

I updated this for OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard)
and also wrote a companion script to send it back to iTunes when your done.
You can download my scripts here:
http://www.reelgeminc.com

Any update to get this to work with the latest iTunes & QT?

Here is my version for OS X Lion, thanks for the previous comments!

Itunes Playback Speed Windows

Thank you for this. And it's Lion update. Is there a companion Lion script? Thanks again!