Hi Scott,
In order to slow down playing of a track in iTunes, you use a value in
the AppleScript that's less than 1.0 -- for example, using 0.5 will
play a track at half the speed. Here's a summary of how this works.
Everett asked: Can you adjust the rate that an MP3 file plays in iTunes?
You can use an AppleScript that will allow you to change the playback
speed of your selected track in iTunes, but iTunes itself does not
natively support changing the playback rate of its audio or video
tracks. iTunes employs a subset of the functions of QuickTime Player
for basic audio/video playback and encoding, with some added
capabilities that are specific to iTunes -- such as tracking bookmarks
that record your last played position in audio books and podcasts, and
the support for Audible.com audiobooks with DRM.
So the two AppleScripts that Louie posted transfer the information
about the selected track and the time currently at the playhead
between iTunes and QuickTime Player. In the first case when you launch
the AppleScript, which is named "Play this song at 1.5x" on my Mac,
playback in iTunes is paused, and QuickTime Player is launched for the
same track with the start time moved to the time at which iTunes was
paused. When you launch the second AppleScript, which is named "Play
this song a 1x in iTunes again" on my Mac, QuickTime Player is
paused, and the time at the playhead is shifted back to the track in
iTunes, which starts playing again.
When you use QuickTime Player and want to play tracks faster or slower
(without using AppleScripts) you can bring up the A/V window from the
Window menu on the menu bar and navigate to the playback speed
control. Interact with the slider and VO-right or left to adjust the
speed. Use the shift key in combination for finer adjustment steps.
You can also adjust volume, balance, bass, treble, and pitch with the
A/V window controls. The main QuickTime Player window has controls
that tell you the time at the playhead, and let you interact and
adjust the time. There's also a volume slider and buttons for play,
rewind, fast forward, and moving to the beginning and end of tracks.
If you want to read more about these AppleScripts, you can read my
list archive post, which points to their source link at Mac OS X
Hints, and also gives instructions for how to save them:
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg11002.html
To save the AppleScripts, you'll need to go to Applications (Command-
Shift-A in finder) and open the Script Editor that's in the
AppleScript folder. Then copy and paste each of these into the Script
Editor as described in more detail in the archived post. That post was
about podcasts in iTunes, and these scripts keep track of the your
place, so they can be used with podcasts. If you're simply interested
in speeding up playback without bookmarks, you can download an
AppleScript called "Podfast" from:
http://www.tunequest.org/speeding-up-podcasts-listen-to-more-faster-part-1/20070130/
It runs a dialog box to ask you what speed you want. I don't like it
as much because it opens extraneous windows and doesn't transfer the
time, so podcasts will always start to play from the beginning.
One warning is that the transfer back and forth between QuickTime and
your Selected track in iTunes may not be automatic if you browse
around in iTunes and shift your selection while you're listening, but
it's fine if you don't shift your selection. Tiger seemed to be more
robust to that than Leopard. And the speed up works in video as well
as audio, but the scripts will not work on Audible files because their
DRM doesn't allow them to be played in QuickTime.
HTH
Cheers,
Esther
On Jan 24, 2009, at 2:47 AM, Scott Howell wrote:
Hi, I have been meaning to ask if this script was to speed up or
slow down a track? Seems to me it would be to speed up the track and
if that is the case, would you use a minus symbol in front of the
1.5 to slow it down?
tnx
Scott Howell
[email protected]
On Jan 19, 2009, at 1:04 AM, louie wrote:
tell application "iTunes"
pause
set my_track to location of current track
set my_seconds to player position
end tell
tell application "QuickTime Player"
open my_track
set my_movie to first movie
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
end tell
And here's the AppleScript to resume at normal speed in iTunes:
(* Resume normal speed in iTunes after using
Play this song at 1.5x
*)
tell application "iTunes"
set my_track to location of current track
end tell
tell application "QuickTime Player"
set my_movie to first movie
set ts to time scale of my_movie
set my_seconds to (current time of my_movie) / ts
close my_movie
end tell
tell application "iTunes"
set player position to my_seconds
play
end tell
louie
[email protected]
