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So it's annoying, but you can achieve exactly what you want by doing this:

Start osu! with a removable audio device such as a bluetooth speaker or usb sound card. Change the playback rate to the desired amount and play the song. While playing, remove the audio device. Osu should automatically pickup your next default audio device (usually onboard audio) and it will be playing without the audio pitch change. As long as you don't change this playback speed, it will stay at that new super low pitch.

To everyone saying that changing the pitch and the speed simultaneously would sound horrible because it doesn't work with a DS, please educate yourself as to how sound works.

If you want a short handwavy explanation, read Halogen's post. This is a bit more technical if you don't believe him.
In short, all audio is just a waveform, it's a position on a single axis as a function of time. A graph where time is the X axis. But sound is not a function you can represent with an equation, so the computer instead simply takes points along every 'n' interval on the time axis, commonly 1/44100ths of a second. These points are then stored in a file known as an mp3 or a wav.
In order to reproduce sound, the computer takes the data points from the file, and plots them back on a new graph. It then scrolls through the points at a speed of 44100 points per second, which then fully reproduces the original sound.

The current granular algorithms to slow down the music is a problem because it results in major distortion of tone and loss of transients, which is a direct result of trying to process the sound in a way that keeps the pitch the same, which is a lot like trying to force a circular rod into a triangular hole. The largest problem with granular stretching is that the transients are lost since matching these transients is exactly what we are trying to do as charters.

What are transients you ask?
TRANSIENTS ARE THE REASON WHY RHYTHMS EXIST. If you distort or lose the transients, you distort or lose the rhythm. Simple as that.

The granular algorithm abraker used in his demonstration is a much better algorithm that what the current editor has. Unfortunately, it's very computationally taxing to do in real time and it still greatly distorts the tone and transients.

The OP's suggestion here is instead of using a badly written algorithm designed to transform and distort the sound data, we simply play the original data back at a lower rate than 44100.
So for 50% speed, we play the data back at 22050 points per second.
This will result in TWO THINGS:
1) The music will be half as fast.
2) The pitch will automatically be taken an octave lower. This is due to the fact that frequencies and tones are nothing more than repeated patterns of points in the data, and slowing the data down will also slow down the patterns, causing the halving of the frequency and thus lowering the pitch of everything in the music by an octave.
But most importantly, the transients will be preserved. This is why we want to slow down the music to begin with: to hear the transients better.

This is why lolcube's argument is painful for me to read. It demonstrates an inherent ignorance of how sound works.
Thanks for reading, hopefully at least people have some idea as to what OP is trying to suggest now.

tl;dr lolcube is wrong, please understand what OP is trying to say and realize it's a great idea which should be implemented.

1.) There is already confirmation here about how pitch works. Poor you, for typing such long story
2.) This'll sound so firetrucking annoying I'll do anything to prevent this unless it'll be a toggle
Why did you have to bring this back up, such a terrible idea

Because granular stretching sounds worse
and leads to charting rhythms incorrectly

You do know this is purely subjective?
I really hate low pitch switches
I love high pitches, as in Nightcore
But I HATE low pitches, especially at slow speed

Transients and rhythms don't care whether or now you like the way they sound. They're still there, and you can hear them better this way.
But you're right, mappers should have the choice to use the granular algorithm if they so choose. Just be aware you're shooting yourself in the foot by doing so.

Why?
Many mappers have achieved great results without the 'new' speed
Especially for standard/ctb
It might be so for Taiko/Mania

My experience with mapping is very mania orientated. And let me tell you, a lot of us mania mappers use many tools outside of the osu editor to help us achieve the great results. Advanced granular stretching (abraker's post) and slowing the music down like I described using other programs, as well as a waveform and spectral visual aid are among a few of these tools.

You're right, it's much less important for ctb and standard to follow the music's rhythm very accurately, but that's no reason to make Taiko and Mania mappers suffer.

make a toggle I guess, I imagine this will help a lot but some people seem to be religious to keep it the way it is.

in the current editor it can get really hard to figure the proper pitch for a song and noises don't sound accurate to original speed, and this sounds like a solution.

seriously sometimes I need to map at 50% speed opposed to 25% cause I can't hear the song properly at 25%

BilliumMoto wrote:

You're right, it's much less important for ctb and standard to follow the music's rhythm very accurately, but that's no reason to make Taiko and Mania mappers suffer.

I agree. While not a taiko player, in mania you have to respond to the tiniest elements within music from around 4.7 stars and up. Degrading that element, whatever it may be, that is 100ms or so in length to utter crap is just not right.

I'm still supporting this as it will be a huge help to a majority of mania mappers. I shouldn't be having to switch to audacity to slow a part of an mp3 down using pitch shift just to hear it's snap. And no, in mania you are required to have the right snap on anything when mapping - you aren't overmapping at all by doing so.

I honestly don't see what the fuss is with everyone saying they hate the song when slowed down in pitch shift. If necessary a toggle can be added but 'listening to nice music when trying to find correct snaps' should be the least of your concerns when making a beatmap. It's quite a shame people are using this reason for the basis of their argument against this feature request.

Starry- wrote:

I'm still supporting this as it will be a huge help to a majority of mania mappers. I shouldn't be having to switch to audacity to slow a part of an mp3 down using pitch shift just to hear it's snap. And no, in mania you are required to have the right snap on anything when mapping - you aren't overmapping at all by doing so.

I honestly don't see what the fuss is with everyone saying they hate the song when slowed down in pitch shift. If necessary a toggle can be added but 'listening to nice music when trying to find correct snaps' should be the least of your concerns when making a beatmap. It's quite a shame people are using this reason for the basis of their argument against this feature request.

Thank you, I mean -- it's nice to see someone who is an active QAT for the part of the game that requires the most detail in beatmapping in support of this idea. It's equally as important to realize that there are multiple proficient users, including Starry-, who again, is a QAT who are having to utilize external tools.

Those who are in support of this are utilizing objectivity to explain their situation; those who are not in support of this are being completely subjective. For those of you who are talking about "listening to the song", you do realize that you are only slowing the song down for yourself to ensure correctness in your beatmap, right? This has nothing to do with the enjoyment of the song -- if you want to enjoy the song, you actually sit down and listen to it outside of osu!, or you play the song in osu! at the correct speed that it is intended at. The editor is only for the purpose of ensuring correctness, and nothing else.

I strongly disagree
When I mod/map, and it plays at 25%, I don't want my ears to die because of horrible pitch
I know, technically, that's how it should be, but that doesn't mean people will like it
Yes, it can be useful for Taiko/Mania, but not for the other modes, and it'll only be annoying as heck to listen to, make ensuring correctness even harder

Who cares if it sounds atrocious if it's for the sake of making good and accurate beatmaps. You shouldn't be using the editor to specifically enjoy the song you map anyway - hey you could just hit Esc twice to go back to the main menu and guess what, you're free to listen to it as much as you want.

If anything the current algorithm used to slow down the song is making it sound horrible.

You even said yourself that, "technically, that's how it should be". What is even your point man, you're not making sense.

Edit : what I mean is, present valid arguments and not only subjective ones. Even if the song sounds horrible slowed down, do I - do WE, as mappers - care if it helps us distinguishing sounds ? Sure I might not like it slowed down, nor does anyone else probably, but I'm not in the editor to purely listen to cool songs.

Baraatje123 wrote:

I strongly disagree

That's your opinion.

Baraatje123 wrote:

When I mod/map, and it plays at 25%, I don't want my ears to die because of horrible pitch

That's also your opinion.

Baraatje123 wrote:

I know, technically, that's how it should be, but that doesn't mean people will like it

you know that's how it should be, technically, but "that doesn't mean people will like it." Why are you speaking for others and assuming that they all share the same opinion as you?

Baraatje123 wrote:

Yes, it can be useful for Taiko/Mania, but not for the other modes, and it'll only be annoying as heck to listen to, make ensuring correctness even harder

...

I'm really not going to respond to this again, because it's incorrect -- others including myself have explained why it is, and like I and PyaKura said -- being annoying to listen to doesn't matter because that's not how the song is going to be played.

at this point, it's just going to be a hope that continually bumping this makes it happen, because there still is no legitimate, objective reason as to why it shouldn't.

Bump

Please look into vocoder time stretching techniques. Here is a link to where you can choose your own music to slow down/speed up or whatever and notice how much better it sounds than time stretching by just regular methods.

Tbh, I have no arguments against it, looks cool

On a side note... From what I know the new editor coming with osu!next should also have the song's spectrum under the timeline... Wouldn't that suffice to the same issue?

MrSergio wrote:

Tbh, I have no arguments against it, looks cool

On a side note... From what I know the new editor coming with osu!next should also have the song's spectrum under the timeline... Wouldn't that suffice to the same issue?

Hopefully this is a reason to not add it, as everything will be visible there. If things aren't visible there, there is no (remarkable) sound

Wait are you still that guy who likes to put non-sensical arguments forward?

Edit : Oooh nevermind, you are.

Bara- wrote:

MrSergio wrote:

Tbh, I have no arguments against it, looks cool

On a side note... From what I know the new editor coming with osu!next should also have the song's spectrum under the timeline... Wouldn't that suffice to the same issue?

Hopefully this is a reason to not add it, as everything will be visible there. If things aren't visible there, there is no (remarkable) sound

...

you do realize by promoting the CURRENT method of slowing down songs, you are creating sounds that aren't there due to the stretching of the audio, right

do you have any objective reasoning whatsoever that supports why this isn't a good idea that can legitimately counterclaim anything that BilliumMoto or myself have said, along with anyone else who actually supports this?

MrSergio wrote:

From what I know the new editor coming with osu!next should also have the song's spectrum under the timeline... Wouldn't that suffice to the same issue?

helpful, but not the end-all, particularly for songs that are a bit more noisy or have more muddled sounds in a tight frequency range

Wait... Does the current setting create new sounds?

The current setting does create new sounds because the audio is stretched and granulated so much it's almost like you hear a lot of smaller sounds in between the louder ones, which might lead to using an incorrect snapping for a burst, for example (like starry showed here before, on nihonshiki).

Bara- wrote:

Wait... Does the current setting create new sounds?

What the current algorithm does is nothing special. It just takes a part of the sound like 5ms for example, cuts it out and puts it a bit later. What you get is choppy audio from all the "holes" moving the parts forward and the audio sounds like you were spamming the play/pause button at 280 bpm or so. If someone is mapping a high bpm map, then it's easy to mistake the start of one of those as a note as it's really hard to distinguish what is what at that level

A better way to do this would include more advanced algorithms capable if filling in those "holes" by analyzing what pitch and amplitude it should be, creating nice and smooth audio.

Bara- wrote:

I strongly disagree
When I mod/map, and it plays at 25%, I don't want my ears to die because of horrible pitch
I know, technically, that's how it should be, but that doesn't mean people will like it
Yes, it can be useful for Taiko/Mania, but not for the other modes, and it'll only be annoying as heck to listen to, make ensuring correctness even harder

you are an idiot. get out.

-----

I don't feel like repeating all the pro's and con's of both methods again, so if anything, I would agree to a new method, as long as the current one stays as an option, making both methods selectable in the edtior and therefore giving everyone the method they need to analyze the song to the extend they require to do.

Loctav wrote:

I don't feel like repeating all the pro's and con's of both methods again, so if anything, I would agree to a new method, as long as the current one stays as an option, making both methods selectable in the edtior and therefore giving everyone the method they need to analyze the song to the extend they require to do.

My thoughts, this isn't the kind of stuff where peppy would be against a toggle.

I love how everyone flames at me, while not explaining properly as to my view was incorrect. With the latest posts here I finally agree with this, with a strong preferation of a toggle. I completely agree with what Loctav said. The only thing I wonder about is to why he quoted a 6 months old post of mine (again, to flame)

I honesly don't mind the huge flame, honestly, but if no one gives me a proper explanation as to why it eases mapping. If you just said that this would stop new sounds from being madr because of sounds tearing up, I'd understand it right away, and I could've seen your point of few. From a subjective point of view I disagree with this, from an objective point of few you finally made me agree with this. The only thing you could maybe improve is your behaviour against people who aren't completely familiar with such feature (pitch shifting) so they (or in this case, I) can understand as to why this should be added. I admit, my behaviour hasn't been the best here, just because I only saw it from a subjective point of few, completely ignoring the objective side and by knowing peppy's point of view against toggles. I therefore want to apologize for my sometimes ignorant behaviour

I still need this. Pitch comes with the speed, when it's manually rised back to original it sounds awful and I can't hear beats properly at 25%. I am tired up of using Audacity for that purpose when in other rhythm games it comes with the option in the editor.