Software developer Sonosaurus has updated its legacy time stretching app PaulStretch under a new name: PaulXStretch.
The free, multi-platform application stretches sounds to very large percentages, ideal for ambient or sound design projects. PaulXStretch can essentially turn sound into hours or days of audio.
In an interview for NPR, PaulStretch inventor Paul Nasca explained the process in greater detail. “The idea of it is pretty simple,” he said. “I take a small chunk (usually around 100 milliseconds) of the audio file from the start position, and I smear it: first I analyze a sound’s frequencies, and then randomize a part of the sounds characteristics and rebuild the chunk. I repeat the same process for another chunk of the audio file, and so on.”
PaulXStretch’s design algorithm comes from the original Paul’s Extreme Time Stretch and the Xenakios version of PaulXStretch. It is rounded out with an updated UI, screen variation and support for various operating systems.
PaulXStretch is free to download for iOS, Linux, Mac and Windows. The source code is available via Github.
Find more information on the Sonosaurus website.