In this blog post, we will explore how to adjust the playback speed of audio using the pydub library in Python. Whether you want to speed up a podcast or slow down a song, pydub provides a simple and efficient way to modify audio speeds.

Installing pydub

To get started, make sure you have the pydub library installed in your Python environment. You can install it using pip:

pip install pydub

Loading and Adjusting Audio Speed

Once you have pydub installed, you can load an audio file and adjust its speed using the AudioSegment and speedup/slowdown methods. Here’s an example:

from pydub import AudioSegment

# Load the audio file
audio = AudioSegment.from_file("input.mp3", format="mp3")

# Adjust the speed by scaling it up (2x faster)
audio = audio.speedup(playback_speed=2.0)

# Save the modified audio to a new file
audio.export("output.mp3", format="mp3")

In this example, we load an audio file called “input.mp3” and use the speedup method to double the playback speed. The modified audio is then exported to a new file called “output.mp3”.

You can also slow down the audio by using the slowdown method:

audio = audio.slowdown(playback_speed=0.5)

In this case, the slowdown method slows down the audio to half of its original speed.

Adjusting Speed with a Percentage

If you prefer to adjust the audio speed by a percentage, you can use the speedup/slowdown methods and provide the percentage value as a parameter. Here’s an example:

audio = audio.speedup(playback_speed=1.5, chunk_size=150, crossfade=25)

In this example, we increase the speed of the audio by 50% (1.5x faster). The chunk_size parameter determines the size of each audio chunk that is processed, and the crossfade parameter controls the length of crossfades applied to the chunks. Adjust these parameters according to your specific needs.

Conclusion

Adjusting the speed of audio files using pydub is a straightforward process. In this blog post, we learned how to install pydub, load audio files, and modify their playback speed using the speedup and slowdown methods. Whether you want to speed up or slow down your audio, pydub provides a convenient solution.

Give it a try and enhance your audio playback experience!