Hi all!
The other day I discovered PaulStretch on the web. The guts of it is that you can take any music track or fragment and stretch the bejezus out of it with Paul's handy little app. For example, a 15 second sound clip could be easily stretched to 15 mins, 30 mins, or 24 hours.

Through careful selection of your original raw sample, you might create a new and inspiring sound canvas that lends itself to further work. IOW, the stretch is just the beginning. Each page in PaulStretch is a toolbox that lets you add, subtract and change the sound until it is unrecognizable. Add effects such as Valhalla Shimmer and you can (not saying you will) end up with something fresh and beautiful.

A typical example to get you started started is Justin Bieber's "YouSmile" slowed 800%. You'll soon get a feel for what works and what doesn't.

Do a little googling of PaulStretch and you'll find heaps of experimental pieces, tips, ideas

So far I've stayed away from the speeding up function of the program but the sky's the limit. If you're feeling a little jaded with the blips, squeaks and sameness of some of today's music-in-a-can trends.

BTW, Audacity (the free audio editor) now comes with a simplified version of PaulStretch built in. In an email from Paul recently, he mentions the following re Audacity:

"For the 16bit audio rendering artifacts, you can try rendering to 32 bits ("32bit" checkbox under "Render selection..." button), or you can use Paulstretch effect from Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) which uses floating point audio."

I also asked Paul about applying a similar stretch process to video. He said:

"For the extreme slowdown for video, I have seen that there are already some plugins which takes a normal video (24fps) and produces an extreme slowed down video. One example is http://www.revisionfx.com/products/twixtor/ (I haven't used it) or you can google for "extreme slow motion software" for other options."

Go forth and create!

 

Paulstretch (both standalone and Audacity-plugin versions) is fun, and can yield some cool sounds. After the novelty os slowing familiar pieces and sounds by 800% or so wears off (search YouTube and Soundcloud for bazillions of examples by people who seem to believe they were the first to do this, though some of the results, such as crickets slowed-down to sound like an angels' choir, are compelling), it proves to be worthwhile in even producing shorter sound samples, momentary effects, and transitional bits.

Myself, I use Paulstretch to make beds under segues and subtle elongations of orchestral endings. I still can't resist, however, "paulstretching" sound samples to see what sounds come forth in the result. What makes "paulstretched" audio sound so interesting is that it doesn't simply slow-down the sound, it sort of "smears" some of it along as well.

 

Thank you jigasquid! That site is very interesting and I didn't know it... let's try! However also RX, audition and live can make miracles in the art of stretching!!

 

Good to hear of your experience with PS Stevitch *yes* Thanks for your embedded tips!

 

I did not know about this. I was thinking to myself earlier I should spend less time messing with sound design (and spend time on some more pressing issues). Now you've ruined any hope of that ever happening in the near future

 

If you're looking for more PS inspiration, take a look (and listen) to the soundtracks of the movies "Oblivion", "BladeRunner" etc, the outputs of Squaredhead's Nora arpeggiator (or similar) as well as your very own favorite synth sounds for creating panoramic beds. If you want to blur the PS results even more, try mixing a little of the immense VST Valhalla Shimmer reverb. Go crazy. Crazy is where the action is

 

Just noticed a possible PaulStretch knock-off, called Instretch is available for free. Haven't tried it yet. The interface may be an improvement on PS but I think you have the pleasure of a nag screen and Instretch don't tell you it's not the full version. You pay for that and PS is free.

 

jeez this has been around forever...

old news...

 

I started to reply to your response remix, then I thought why bother. You had a choice to bring something creative to the discussion and you didn't. That's cool too.