Stretching a song to a Millenium long

Published: 03-21-2012

What is PaulStretch?

PaulStretch is a piece of software developed by… well, let’s see if you can guess his first name. The software allows the user to stretch audio well beyond the limits you’d think – boasting millenia-long stretches, it’s certainly something out of the audinary (see what I did there?)

Paul Nasca became somewhat of an internet phenomenon when he used his seemingly magic software to turn Justin Bieber’s song “U Smile” into an ambient 35 minute epic that would make Sigur Ros jealous.

The song spread round the ‘net like wildfire, promoting his free piece of software with it. So if you haven’t already, give it a google and try it out for yourself!

How does it work?

It’s pretty complicated, but it involves taking random samples from the surrounding positions in the audio, then copying and pasting them… then doing this for every wave of audio. There’s also some other stuff going on under the hood, including phase randomisation, tremollo amplidute modification and other unnecessarily complicated sounding techniques.

Considering the processing involved, the program is surprisingly fast at generating results too – it only takes a few seconds to hear the results on a reasonable computer. There are also a bunch of effects available that really make the sounds pop, including an impressive harmonics processing tool that clarifies and sharpens sounds brilliantly.

So get creative and see what noises you can make with PaulStretch!

Categories: Tech Talk