Hi,
If I want to slow down a voice recording (at 16 bit 44.1 kHz wav) by about 10% or so, I'm getting a gentle stuttering, or it's like you can hear that the audio is stretched. I tried this in Audacity, Studio One and Reaper. Can you recommend a good plugin that might be able to deliver better sounding results? I assume it's probably gonna be hard to do this without audible artifacts. Well, if it is possible, I'd love to hear any info on how it can be done. Thank you.

 

If I would do such a thing, I would use Falcon (IRCAM algorithms are working great on time strech ).
But it depends heavy on the length of the Voice clip, about 5-10 seconds it cracks up the CPU usage.
I think this https://www.ircamlab.com/products/p1680-TS// use the same algorithms (But I have never worked with that)
This one could be good to http://hypermammut.sourceforge.net/paulstretch/ (just saw it on research on the IRCAM )

The Stutter can't be completely avoided
But with a better Antialiasing the result could be better

 

Last edited by a moderator: Dec 6, 2019

The best VST I know is zplane Elastique Pitch 2. Mind that the MAC version has more features.

 

first try paulstretch

 

I think you get confused: Elastique Pitch is a plugin that change the pitch keeping the same tempo of original file, a technique called pitch shifting. The OP is about changing the tempo and keeping same pitch (time stratching), which is the opposite.

Any DAW will natively change the tempo of a sample without altering the pitch (no need of 3rd party plugin)

 

You can definitely accomplish this in Ableton Live's warp mode by changing the warp mode to complex pro. Quik Quak's PitchWheel might be a plugin to consider to accomplish this task.

If all fails just send me the recording and let me know the bpm you would like the recording to be and I can slow it down for you

 

Last edited: Dec 5, 2019

i think paulstretch is better then complex pro...but complex pro can do the task nicely maybe in the end..

 

With Reaper you have to experiment with the different available algorithms, it can be a default global setting for the entire project, or a dedicated media item setting. For solo vocals I usually use elastique 3.3.0 Pro, then it allows to fine tune it with several modes. The best of all is in my opinion Serato Sample, just load the sample inside of it and change the play rate.

 

Dammit why do I always miss it when people respond to my messages.

Thank you for the suggestions, it seems like this is a tricky thing to do, will check out the recommendations.

 

I did not get confused:

1. The guy asked "Can you recommend a good plugin?".
2. "zplane's ELASTIQUE family offers three different time-stretching (aka time-scaling, master tempo or key lock) and pitch shifting (aka pitch scaling or key lock) engines, optimized for different use cases: ELASTIQUE PRO, ELASTIQUE EFFICIENT, and ELASTIQUE TUNE. All three of them are able to run in realtime.
ELASTIQUE PRO
ELASTIQUE PRO is a general purpose time-stretching engine that offers unmatched quality and easily fulfills the high quality demands of professional productions and broadcast applications. The time-stretching engine is based on state-of-the-art psychoacoustic models and signal processing theory. ELASTIQUE PRO is based on a completely new approach to time-stretching, making stretching artifacts obsolete and thus providing sharp transients and crystal clear vocals without phasing artifacts. ELASTIQUE PRO offers stable timing, inter-channel phase coherence and sample accurate stretching. As a special feature, ELASTIQUE PRO allows you to do formant preserving pitch shifting not only for monophonic, but also for polyphonic audio to avoid the well-known mickey-mouse effect when pitching up or down. Last but not least, all of this can be done in real-time on current CPUs." Etc...
https://licensing.zplane.de/technology#elastique

 

It's not a plugin, so may not fit your purpose exactly. But I'd try the timestretch from Izotope RX, called Radium. Has an interesting "smoothy yet glossy" sound to it, and there are a lot of settings exposed to tweak.

It's an offline process because it's very CPU heavy.

 

Reaper - just Alt+drag the item,
and experiment with various algorithms for best result

 

As name says: Timestretch manipulate TIME, instead of Pitch shifting that manipulates PITCH (and formant also).
Elastique pitch is an effective pitch shifting tool, not a timestretch tool. That why you will never get to have any tempo manipulation with it

 

But it looks like because

...

 

Most of my experiments these years point to elastique 3 Pro algorithm. IRCAM, paulstretch, copula timestretch, quickquak (this is only pitch not TS) are just pale in comparison. Elastique as a vst does not timestretch, but implemented in a daw it can do that, along pitching. Melodyne will not do it better than elastique, maybe accidentally, it depends very much on the source. There's also zynaptic with time factory, serato time and pitch, izotope radius, good ol' Dirac. But none of them will work without artifacts washy sounds or stutters, stereo image changed etc.
use 96 khz or 192 if possible, it helps with the artifacts.

 

zynaptic and seratos must be in here yes

 

Well, they have several products with similar names. I did not know all of their products by heart, it is my lapse.
It is true that all their Win plugins are only pitch-shifting, but as I said previously, as far as I can remember there is a particular MAC version that can also change tempo.
A simple audio editor that does it well /without any stutter at least/ (I tried it in 1% - 99% range) is NCH WavePad (the latest version is 9.63).

 

In early 90’s the only timestratch possible was using samplers: the algorithm used was elementary, and the result very “crude”
O-O-O-R-I-I-I-G-I-I-I-N-A-A-A-L B-A-A-A-D-D-B-W-W-O-O-O-O-Y-Y-Y-Y-Y
I love that early drum’n’bass voice effect!

 

Usually when I start a thread like this I set it to "watch" mode so i get a notification when people respond. That way I don't forget that I ever made a thread and end up asking the same shit later on lol

 

+1 for Elastique Pro 3 and Melodyne.
I'm surprised though that stretching by only 10% already gives audible stuttering, especially with vocals which are usually comparatively easy to stretch.