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Synthetic playback

Generally Soundslice is all about syncing music with real human performances — but it can be useful to hear computer-generated playback.

Our synthetic playback lets you slow music way down without audio degradation, and it means the playback will be metronomically “perfect” — useful for learning rhythmically complex passages. It also always plays exactly what’s written in your notation, making it useful to spot errors while transcribing.

You can listen to synthetic audio for any slice by choosing “Synth” in the audio source selector:

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Changing an instrument’s synthetic sound

Each instrument in a slice has a default synthetic instrument sound — like piano, steel-string guitar, violin, etc. But sometimes you might want to change the synthetic sound on the fly, to help you practice. For example, you may want to change the timbre of a guitar from electric to acoustic to fit the instrument you’re practicing with. Or, you may want to change to an instrument sound that has clearer attack, like a piano vs. a wind instrument, so that it’s easier to hear a particular rhythm.

To change an instrument’s synthetic sound, open the mixer and make a new selection from the instrument’s “Synthetic sound” dropdown menu.

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Note that this will only last as long as your practice session. It will reset when you refresh the page. If you created the slice, see here for information on changing the default synth sound for an instrument.

Changing an instrument’s synthetic volume

You can use the mixer to change synthetic playback levels of individual instruments. In addition to changing volume levels, you can quickly mute/solo individual instruments.

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To open the mixer, tap this icon in the controlbar:

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Why would “Synthetic” be missing from a slice’s recordings menu?

The slice owner can optionally disable synthetic playback. In that case, you won’t see the “Synthetic” option.

Is it possible to play synthetic playback and real audio/video at the same time?

Yes indeed! See our separate help page on synth overlay.