I did a project for a 12 year old boy last year. Now he needs the tracs that he sings with dropped a little. Probably a half step, no more than a whole. can anyone recomend anything

Adobe Audition 1.5 will do it. Goldwave will do a lot of stuff. I don't know if this is one of them, but there is a free trial.

is gold wave a waves plug in

What program can't do that? Now...that can do it WELL...different story.

I'll be honest--depends on the sounds. I've found things like tremolo EP are nearly impossible to modulate. Something about the trem throws every algorithm I've tried. Both things I currently use (DPS24 and Cubase4) have multiple variations on the algorithms. Acoustic guitar will want a different algorithm than a Strat...probably a third for the bass...if you need it to sound natural.

...that said, I always think there's something kind of "off" sounding about the shifted tracks. How long would it take to just recut it?

Goldwave is an audio editing program. You can probably find it at download.com or some such place. Popmann is right. Doing it and doing it well are two different things. I've had mixed results mucking with the tempo or pitch in Adobe Audition. It always does something funky to the sound. If you start with a high res sound file and don't have to make too drastic a change, the file is usually not any worse for wear than saving it in a compressed mp3 format.

Ive done it a couple of times with a program sony had I believe. Cutting it is out, he doesnt have the money right now. I dont think these tracs will be that hard. It is for a tv show and I just wanted the best thing for him

If you could somehow get it on a karaoke CD, most karaoke decks have a pitch-change feature. It sounds pretty bad, but, on local TV, who's going to notice? TV sound is worse than karaoke sound.