I’m trying to learn to play some folk tunes on mandolin. I’m looking for some software that will let me loop sections and change tempo (without changing pitch). To help learn by ear, i want repetition and then slowly build up speed.
I thought Audacity would do it but it looks like it is lacking the real-time component (or at least seems to be in its infancy) unless there’s something i’m missing?
Get yourself a copy of ableton - the lite version comes free with loads of things including a bunch of music apps so you can often find codes that others are able to share. For your purposes you only need this lite version which is limited to 8 tracks.
The normal session view clip recording on an audio track will be exactly what you need
I’d also recommend REAPER, a full DAW just like Ableton, but the full feature set is free instead of a lite version, but Ableton’s a good one, too. I think OP would be harder pressed to find a program that specifically does that compared to just using a DAW that can easily do that and much more.
Reaper is not free, the trial is just very lenient on how long you use it. If you do keep using Reaper after the evaluation period, you should buy it - 60$ is a laughably small amount for such a powerful DAW.
Anyways, Reaper is super lightweight so it could be a good bet for OP. Although the number of stock VST plugins is fairly small.