I’m using audacity to volume trim and finalise my mix and I would like to increase and decrease the tempo on some of the tracks . However when I use the sliding pitch (can’t remember the exact name )it really feels unnatural and I’ve tried to make minute changes to the tempo over time but that sounds just as jarring . Would different software allow for a more analogue type feel of pitch change
Great question - would be keen to see responses from those knowledgable in this area.
A little more detail would be helpful. Why do “some of the tracks” need their tempo increased or decreased? What’s wrong with the tempo as you recorded it (assuming you did)?
What exactly feels unnatural/jarring about changing the tempo? How much are changing it by, and over how long?
Basically in my quest to create a very complicated mix I chose to record everything at 35bpm so I could concentrate on the mixing rather than the subtle bpm changes also I have recorded my mix in parts 16 parts 43 tracks in all so I could check the quality of the mix as I went along rather than be unhappy with the result .
I didn’t want to use a computer to create the mix as I like the features of the prime 4 and the sound of real mixing however the level of complexity often with 3 tracks at once (even once with 4 tracks) made it hard to create a perfect sounding mix for the whole hour (que the “you need to practice more comments” 
)
Basically I have over edited it and it’s loosing quality every time I edit it but I’m going to try and re record some of the tracks and change the pitch’s of them live and then increase the tempo of my wav mix files one at a time vs all at the same time which I think is what’s causing the deterioration
I hope that makes sense but I under stand if it doesn’t cause my brain is fried
35bpm? What tempo are the tracks normally?
The first half 35 bpm The middle bit goes up to 37 back to 35 then up to 40 bpm Unfortunately the going back to 35 is essential but it all works out In theory .I just shouldn’t have banked on it being easy to do in post production
The tracks are normally 35-40bpm? What kind of music is it?
I was kind of wondering the same here 
I’m more interested in the comment about losing quality every time you edit. …that shouldn’t be happening if you’re saving as wav rather than a lossy format.
Oops I meant 135 bpm I just have 3.5 tempo adjustments on my mind I think the main reason I lost quality is when I did a tempo change I highlighted all of the second half of the mix when moving to a 137 bpm the quality was okay still then when I moved into changing the final portion to 140 it had lost a lot of quality as that was the 3rd or fourth time changing tempo that all I can think it could be I have done a lot of volume editing as well so that could have been a factor . I did get round that problem by cutting and pasting some unedited audio the original one and that worked but when I tried to do a sliding pitch change it sounded awful so I am going to try inserting the track with pitch change from the prime 4 recording
I think the easiest thing to do might be to play the mix on the Prime 4, adjust the tempo as it’s playing and record it to a new file.
It’s quite easy to make tempo adjustments like this in Ableton Live, but if you don’t have it (or experience of using it) then the above method might be best.
I wouldn’t resort to software for this.
The primes have absolutely stunning pitch algorithms so that songs don’t sound like helium when speeded up and not sounding like a opera tenor when slowed down - clever and well executed but analogue/vinyl doesn’t do that, so for “authentic “ you might want to turn key adjust off rather than embracing it
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I tried that but it lost quality even more .the wave form recorded odd looking very blocky and sounded bad but I think it might be the fact that I tried it with a already over edited version of my mix so I’m not ruling it out . I’ll try again tomorrow with my first minimal edited wav form cause that would be a easy solution
Just out curiosity - how loud is Your master output?
Good point, well raised! If he’s trying to edit the original un-normalised recording then that could well be why the result sounds bad.
If he’s playing back the quiet recording on the Prime 4 and recording it again, it’ll be even quieter!
No I recorded it low enough only 4 green bars showing never clipping then amplified it using audacity. I think the issue is increasing the tempo two many times for instance half way through I increased the tempo for all the second half of the mix so that when I came to the next tempo shift it would all move up together by the time I did a fourth tempo shift at the end the last portion was bad Also A lot of the tracks I’m using are of quite poor quality very old recordings from vinly put onto computer over 20 years ago and I’m not sure what was used back then but that might also be a factor
It certainly could be, yes. If they’re low bit rate lossy compressed files, then the algorithm has less data to work with.