Comments on: Increase Productivity – Speed Up Your iPod Playback!

By: JRR

JRR — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 20:44:11 +0000

If you have a RockBox compatible player (iPods qualify, I use a $25 refurb Sansa Fuze 4G), you can control pitch and speed independently with 1% accuracy from 35% to 250% normal speed, and pitch from 50% to 200%. A wide variety of players are supported.

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 13:10:26 +0000

Amazing slow downer can have variable speeds. From 1.0 to 2.0. It is an app for iOS.

By: Darren

Darren — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 09:40:54 +0000

@eltranced: I’ve been using the iPod for audiobooks, podcasts, lectures etc for many years, with sped-up playback, and I’ve never encountered a track that had the problem you’re describing. If you have some other software whose results you prefer, though (e.g. Audacity), there’s no reason you can’t use it to speed up the track and then drop the sped-up version into iTunes for playback on an iPod in the normal way.

By: eltranced

eltranced — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 04:23:30 +0000

someone needs to hack ipod so vlc can be installed on it

one time that i tried to use audiobook to speed up playback i've noticed undesirable algorithm, the playback is sped up by skipping over parts so the parts that are trimmed are not heard ... and if thats still the practice i find it rather inconvenient

By: Darren

Darren — Mon, 16 May 2011 11:59:03 +0000

@Claire: Thanks for the update. As you can see, this post was written 4 years ago when it wasn’t that easy!

By: Claire

Claire — Mon, 16 May 2011 04:40:01 +0000

There is a muuuuch easier way to do this. In iTunes, just select the file, press ctrl/command+i, go to the “options” tab, choose audiobook from the media kind dropdown. Done! http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=605179

Works for PCs and Macs.

By: Darren

Darren — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 22:03:49 +0000

@John: I wish it was easier, but you can speed up iPod playback as much as you like. You can pass the MP3s through something like Audacity to create a new MP3 that’s say 50% faster, then put that onto your iPod. You could optionally use iTunes to then turn it into an AAC audiobook file, so you can speed it up even more or slow it down if 50% is too fast. The only problem is that it’s a lot of mucking around. Like I say, I wish it was easier.

By: John

John — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 15:48:45 +0000

I use Audacity, which is open source and free. As far as I know, it doesn't import AAC files, but most podcasts are in MP3 anyways. After importing into Audacity, go to the "effect" menu and then click on "change tempo..." (change speed will result in chipmunks). I listen to most things between 50%-80%. If you want to convert audible and itunes books to mp3, use a program called Sound Taxi. I haven't found a suitable solution for Mac yet. I also use Text to Speech built into OSX. Text Aloud is a great program for PC which will do TTS at any speed and export it to MP3 in one step.

I am looking for an ipod hack that will speed up a podcast to at least 50%

By: sara

sara — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 02:07:39 +0000

I’m a pc ((( Is there any hope for me?

By: TheKid

TheKid — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 17:32:50 +0000

"I tried this out with my nano chromatic and i don’t seem to have a variable playback option if I hit the center button 3x, any ideas?"

it has to be under audiobook and instead of pressing button 3x you hold the center button down

By: Darren

Darren — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 09:44:19 +0000

I'm not sure, Sam. Are you sure you converted to AAC, and then made the AAC (not the original file) bookmarkable? Also make sure that it's the AAC file that is getting synced to your iPod, not the original.

I don't know if it works on shuffles, but it works on every other iPod model I've tried (including my nano).

By: Sam

Sam — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 09:19:42 +0000

I tried this out with my nano chromatic and i don’t seem to have a variable playback option if I hit the center button 3x, any ideas?

By: Colin Y.J. Chung

Colin Y.J. Chung — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 04:40:05 +0000

Thank you for this useful post.

This is a great way to really get through hours of educational material if you are short on time.

By: Lars

Lars — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 21:11:25 +0000

I would like variable-speed playback on my iPod. In particular, I'd like to be able to slow it down when playing back audio files, for better comprehension when listening to language-learning mp3's. Second, third, etc. languages are much easier to understand when slowed down just 10 or 20 percent. So I agree, incremental speed control would be great. And for native-language podcasts or audio books, it would be nice to speed them up.

Thanks for the tip about converting your file to AAC and making it an audiobook... I may use that. The approach I've been using is to slow the file down using 3rd-party software (e.g. the free Audacity) before putting it on my iPod. Of course this takes additional storage space if you want both slow and regular versions.

Lars