And after reading some of the creative uses for Varispeed in this thread, I too shall try Reaper's version of it.  It definitely has me curious...
 

One of the coolest things I ever did with Vari-Speed was to WAY speed up the tape and tune it to a kick drum, without pillow, etc, and play it to a song with a felt mallet. Then when we put it back at normal speed- WOW. Huge, in tune, LOW LOW drum sound. Everyone was blown away and realized I was a genius... duh! 

Vari-Speed... I would be very surprised if the majority of the people who have been critical (in this thread) of those who want it bad have ever used it! And if they record many real acoustic instruments on the clock. Nothing wrong with that, of course- just wondering...

The thing that no one seems to have mentioned is that "Vari-Speed" is different from "Vari-Pitch" and "Vari-Tempo"- in an important way. Many computer alterations of audio have to stretch or crunch the music- and that can create weird sonic artifacts that can ruin a beautiful sounding recording. Vari-Speed, at least as it's implemented in Reaper, doesn't sound warbly or weird. To me, V-Vocal- while a cool tool- often sounds really weird. Unacceptable in classical, acoustic, or hi-fi music. 

I'd guess- have no idea- that as Craig Anderton suggested- it's done with a global change to the sampling frequency, like the ADAT used to do. So it just plays the file slower of faster without recomputing it in an unnatural way. I don't know- just a guess? 

But it sounds a lot more natural to me than the pitch change software (and audiosnap) that's currently available in Sonar. Which is critical if you're trying to do classical or acoustic music. 

Did speeding up the playback rate adversely affect how the drummer performed the part?   That's one of the down sides I see to traditional varispeed, at least for the more drastic differences.  
 
But I guess I'll have to try it myself...  I'm thinking that artificially creating a big ole kick drum might be a good start.  
 

Well sure it's something that anyone has to adjust to... but for any willing musician, ya don't mind trying weird or challenging things to create AWESOME. It's usually not that hard to just play to a slightly faster or slower tempo. But if it's too hard, you just forget it and try something else. 

I truly support the varispeed feature (both traditional tapelike, as well as pitch adjustment for the entire project)
I think it is a useful feature, as described by both McQ and SublteArts.

It should support all data in the project to be tuned up or down semitones and cents with two dial knobs. This concerns  both audio and midi data, and notes generated with the step sequencer and arpeggiator . A switch is needed to indicate whether tempo is to be adjusted along with the pitch. The knobs and switch should be situated in the Control Bar.


But if I had a dulcimer player in my band a would ask him to consider a Roland V-dulcimyser.

Just an aside...

In the E9 tuning on the pedal steel there are only two strings that tune to 440. The rest are cents above/below and then the instrument is played in tune with the rest of the band via ear intonation. Or in many cases, not.

And though I've not tried it with a hammered dulcimer, I've been quite successful utilizing DNA to correct one poorly tuned string on an acoustic guitar/ banjo/mandolin etc.


*On edit - Color customization would make me much happier that varispeed.

I don't know if I wrote this already but if I can create a wave file of a track and then load it into a sample player and then use a pitch wheel to be the varispeed, how hard can this be to implement in CAKE?  

Jim