Paul's Extreme Sound Stretch | Hacker News Reader

Paul's Extreme Sound Stretch

hypermammut.sourceforge.net

80 pointstomkwok16 comments

Arguably what brought PaulStretch into the public eye was this 800% slow-down of "U Smile" that made Justin Beiber sound like Sigur Ros https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bidHnEekXpE

Interview with the creator: http://www.ew.com/article/2010/08/18/justin-bieber-u-smile-s...

The author's homepage lists a bunch of interesting things where the software has been used and mentioned[1]. Personally I found it quite fitting on the Dredd 3D soundtrack on a song that it plays when people are using a drug called Slo-Mo, which slows the user's perception of time to 1% of normal.

[1] http://www.paulnasca.com/open-source-projects#TOC-Paul-s-Ext...

Time-stretching audio algorithms are really fun.

Paulstrech algo: http://www.paulnasca.com/algorithms-created-by-me#TOC-PaulSt...

Ableton live has similar algorithms built in for audio time stretching, but Paulstrech goes a step further and integrates a large spacey reverb that smooths out the abrasiveness of the low resolution playback at extreme modifications.

You can't mention PaulStretch without linking to Justin Biebier's totally amazing ambient orchestral piece, U Smile:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QspuCt1FM9M

I'm not even kidding. It's superb. Put it on, turn the lights out, imagine yourself on an alien beach, and feel the stress drift away...

For a sample work created by Paul's Sound Stretch, check out The Ambient Dishwasher, by low light mixes:

https://www.mixcloud.com/lowlight/the-ambient-dishwasher/

That's easily the most beautiful thing I've ever heard, just barely edging out the paulstretch'd U Smile.

This will interest you strongly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/76:14

Check out Vangelis, Dead Can Dance, old-school Enya (The Celts soundtrack comes to mind), if you liked this.

I already have almost-full discographies of all except for Dead Can Dance (who I hadn't heard of before). Thanks for the tip!

Also, Loreena McKennitt's Book of Secrets

If you're curious here's some stuff I did a few years ago using it:

https://soundcloud.com/medicinewheel

The interest thing about this app is that it allows you to pull material from almost anywhere and make it sonically interesting. The first track I made was sourced from 2 seconds of Love is a Battlefield and a few seconds from an anti-depressant commercial. The fun part of this app is trying to turn the most mundane sounds into something interesting.

This is very cool, I'll need to spend some time playing with it.

I used abuse an old Powerbook's CPU by using Logic's Time Machine at the maxium settings and clicking through the all the warnings that it might harm the processor, and repeat several times. I made a whole album doing that: https://josephpost.bandcamp.com/

I loved what this software package did for Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights (36 minutes long, so grab a seat): http://youtu.be/fsXhtJ9BTJA

For reference, this is the original version: http://youtu.be/BW3gKKiTvjs

Wow -- this[0] really reminds me of this[1].

[0] http://hypermammut.sourceforge.net/paulstretch/20x.ogg

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpMNXEY_tio

Damn, I ran DEVO's "Mongoloid" through that and got a Godspeed You! Black Emperor song.

Paulstretch is now included as an effect in Audacity.

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