Creative Time Stretching

What is Time Stretching?

Time stretching is a tool that you will find in just about any DAW. It is mainly considered a practical tool and an excellent option for getting your drum loops in time with the grid or changing the track's tempo in a DJ set. Moreover, you can use it to create exciting mangled sounds and implement it on most of the audio material (vocals, synths, drums, FX, you name it). In the following tutorial, I will demonstrate how to use time stretch with the help of some other effects to transform a simple vocal sample into something completely different.

Let's Get Started!

I have chosen a short Ethno vocal phrase that is, in my opinion, most suitable to achieve the desired effect. Let us first hear the unprocessed vocal phrase solo and then mix it with other elements in the track.

~ Vocal Phrase, unprocessed

~ Vocal Phrase, unprocessed, with Drums & Bass

 

Adding Transpose Stretch

After mixing the vocal phrase with existing elements in the project, I will add a 3rd party plugin. It's called Transpose Stretch within Guitar Rig 5 by Native Instruments. This particular plugin allows me to control simple time stretching. It possesses gain, delay, and pitch control as additional parameters, which are pretty handy for the result I am trying to achieve.  

Let's move now to automating parameters within the Transpose Stretch plugin. The first thing to do is engage the "ON "parameter at the desired point in the vocal phrase. Basically, you catch one small part of the vocal phrase, freeze it to time, and stretch it. You can play around with the amount of stretch, but I will start with the stretch parameter turned up to 100 % for this example.

~ Transpose Stretch plugin, bypass button automated

Now comes the fun part... I automate the grain, pitch, and stretch parameters, which alter the vocal phrase beyond recognition. It seems like a rather complex automation process. But trust me, it is worth every minute of your time when you compare the original to the result.

~ Transpose Stretch plugin, full automation

After setting everything up, the vocal phrase still sounds a bit dry. So, I will process it further with Reverb and Delay. Let us finally hear it now with Drums and a Bassline.

~ Vocal phrase processed + Drums & Bass line