How to slow down part of a YouTube video
YouTube's speed control works on the whole video, in fixed steps, and forgets what you chose the moment you navigate away. For studying one passage, all three of those are problems.
What the native control does
The settings menu offers a fixed set of speeds and applies them to the whole video. It is fine for listening to a lecture at 1.5x. It is awkward for the four bars you are trying to learn, because the speed is a property of your session rather than of the passage, and nobody you send the link to gets it.
Slowing one passage, and keeping it
- 1Open Loop and paste the link.
- 2Set the start and end of the passage so it repeats.
- 3Press S to step through slow motion, or use the square brackets to move the speed 0.05 at a time. Anything from a quarter speed up to double is available.
- 4Copy the link. The speed travels with it.
Paste a link and slow a passage down.
Why 0.05 steps matter
The useful speed for learning something physical is rarely one of the round numbers. It is the fastest you can still play it, which might be 0.85. Being able to move in small steps, rather than jumping between a half and three quarters, is the difference between practising at the edge of your ability and practising somewhere convenient.
The pitch drops as the speed does, which is how browsers handle it. For working out a fingering that is usually fine; for training your ear to a pitch it is not.
If you are slowing something down to learn it physically, the two pages worth reading next are the guitar one and the dance one.
Questions
- Does the speed stay when I share the link?
- Yes. The speed is part of the link, so whoever opens it hears the passage at the speed you set.
- How slow can it go?
- A quarter speed, and up to double in the other direction, in steps of 0.05.
Slow a passage down
0.25x to 2x, in 0.05 steps, kept in the link.
Slow a passage down →Or try Playback if you want the slow passage to carry your explanation too.
Read next
- GuideHow to loop part of a YouTube videoYouTube can loop a whole video, but not one section of it. Here is how to repeat a single passage, set its start and end, and send that loop to someone as a link.
- GuideHow to loop and slow a guitar lesson to practise itIsolate the bars you are working on, slow them to the fastest speed you can still play, and keep that loop in a link you can come back to tomorrow.