Sound Tools guidebook

Slowed and Reverb: Choosing Speed, Pitch and Space

A slowed-and-reverb edit makes a recording slower and adds a sense of space. Start with a short section and adjust one control at a time: slower is not automatically better, and too much reverb can make words hard to understand.

Start with a manageable clip

Use audio you have the right to edit and share. The Slowed and Reverb tool accepts a browser-decodable recording up to two minutes and 40 MB; processing takes place on your device. Try the example first if you do not have a file ready.

Choose the recording and start with the tool’s 80% speed, 38% reverb mix and 2.3-second decay. These are starting points, not rules. Process the clip and compare the same part of the original and result.

Speed and pitch are different controls

At 80% speed, a 60-second source becomes approximately 75 seconds before any reverb tail. The exact output can be longer because the effect has a tail.

Changing playback rate traditionally changes both speed and pitch; time-stretching can instead aim to keep pitch steady. Sound Tools uses time-stretching for its speed control. For a lower-pitched result, use Pitch Shifter as a separate step and listen for artifacts, especially on voice and drums.

Mix and decay

Reverb mix controls the balance of reverberated sound against the original signal. Lower it when the voice recedes or the sound becomes washed out; increase it gradually when you want more space.

Decay controls how long the simulated reverberation trails off. A longer tail can make sparse material feel spacious, but it can blur fast phrases. Try a shorter decay before raising the output level to compensate.

Preview and export

Make a change, process again and listen for artifacts or lost clarity. The tool can reduce the result’s level to protect sample peaks, so a processed file is not necessarily louder. Export WAV for another editing pass, or MP3 when a compact result is useful.

For a speed change without reverb, choose Tempo Changer. For reverb without slowing, choose Add Reverb. Each has its own device and file limits; quality can vary with the source and the amount of processing.

Further reading

Put it into practice

Tools for this guide

← Explore all guides