Timestretching and Looping Audio for Ambient

The Lounge Other Gear
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So I don’t even know if this is what you’re actually trying to do but I just identified what seemed like the correct loop points without using a grid and then found what sounded to my ears (and eyes) like the best zero crossing, then I didn’t even crossfade, I just looped it a number of times and other than the guitar strings sound I’m not getting any clicking. You might be able to be more precise about it by referencing a grid, or maybe I’ve missed the objective.

The first one is the loop in the original pitch

The second one is the loop pitched down 40% with no correction for tempo

The third one is the loop pitched down 40% with correction to keep the original tempo

If this isn’t what you were trying to do, you’ll have to explain a little more clearly what your objective was but I think this is what you were talking about.

Also keep in mind that if you wanted a different part of the loop but the same concept, that the way to achieve it is the same. Crossfading is more useful when it’s not a rhythmic sample because it helps blend the edges but something like this, you just want a loop which comes from the middle I guess you’d say, rather than the beginning.

If you take a loop from the beginning it doesn’t start with any of the guitars natural acoustics ringing out and by taking your loop from a couple bars in, it sounds better as it continues because there is less audible drop in harmonic content at the actual loop point.

If you’re using a straight melodic sample like a note or a voice, then the same principle applies but you might need crossfade to smooth the transitions.

Anyways you can see the bar that I looped repeatedly and then I just joined the audio together and after I made sure it didn’t click, then I pitched the entire new sample down rather than pitching it first.

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The longer one is the pitch change which also effects tempo.

Also, here’s a little improvised jam that I did on the S4 a while back, just looping the same samples within the same pattern. At around 1:55 I bring in a drone sound which is just a short portion of a longer sustained note and it’s got some modulation on it but it’s like, a very short portion of a note just repeatedly looping which makes it drone.

It’s nothing incredible as a composition but just as a frame of reference, I’m crossfading pretty heavily on that drone note and the S4 doesn’t even break a sweat.

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pretty simple to achieve all this in sampler;position loop where desired, put the sustain on loop, crank up crossfade smooth the loop out, then you can play around with the amp envelope to make it more pleasing. obv with rhythmic content you will need to think about how it will fit into your projects sync, (some artists like jan jelinek use the time difference for interesting phasing ala steve reich), but if you pitch an octave of the base note it should sync up. or you could add reverb and delay and mush all the rhythm into a wash of sound and bend it to your will. much to think about

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This thread has been really helpful. I figured out a workaround to the problem I was having, which was an abrupt start to the sample specifically when triggering the the loop with a midi note. So actually I was able to loop the sample ok, I just didn’t know how to put it into my arrangement. If i just avoided retriggering the sample it works fine. I think I better understand sampling now and what the Torso S4 is. Here is the sketch using that sample.

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If you’re interested I paul stretched 1 bar of your sample, so like 1.3 seconds. I also recorded a take of it through my reverb pedal. If you want to hear that I’ll link it below.

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Paul Stretch for life!! Instant Ambient! When i was trying to channel my inner odd nosdam back in 09 creating drones and ambient textures OG Paul Stretch + my trusty SP-404 were the perfect tools. Its built into Audacity these days, but i miss the OG version.

EDIT: In fact been waiting for something hardware with PaulStretch vibes for a long time, not to hijack the thread but what would everyone consider the closest thing in reality?

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Hijack away!

I was making some fun granular drones tonight in Pigment’s granular engine with Pigment’s own effects. Tried the Shimmer reverb based on earlier advice and liked what I heard. Added Arturia Tape Mello Fi effect and I’m getting audio drop outs at like 8% CPU load. There’s always some technical error I run into when making electronic music, I guess it comes with the territory. Buy all the DAW, VSTs, and effects and then find your newish laptop (2020 M1 8GB Macbook) can’t really handle them.

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Sounds awesome, were you able to record any audio from it?

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same with my M1 *GB M’book …crashes the moment i use PaulStretch .

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Sure! Here is what I came up with, just modulating the sample start time and the volume of the sample a bit. Using a stock sample called “Dream Stab” in Pigments

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About Time Stretching

Ableton, MPC or other gear such as the OT tend to do a good job for 2 octaves and they do it in real-time. But the algorithms have some limitations, if you want to go farther than this.

For otherworldly drones and ambient textures I would recommend to change horses.

Ever tried “Composers Desktop Project”?
https://www.composersdesktop.com/index.html
This is a collection of audio manipulation tools including pitching up and down or slow down audio. I use it for drones and other textures I wouldn’t achieve with other tools. After processing those samples are used in a DAW or become part of a synth patch.

Best … it’s free.

Okay … it’s not real time processing … but delivers high quality audio … even if we stack audio processes to slow down audio dramatically.

Since command line execution is not everybody’s tea, there is a new UI environment available, which is easy to learn and to use. We can build a chain of FX-Boxes and connect them with virtual wires. Same thing like using a pedal board.

It’s also free … provides easy definition of the “input-audio-file” and an “output-file”, which we can review directly inside the tool.

Name is “Soundthread” by Jonathan Higgins:

If all of this is set up correctly, which wasn’t hard to me IMO, there is a cosmos of possibilities to generate all sorts of ambient or non-ambient noises, atmospheres, and textures, which can be used as samples in our projects.

An other option would be to check out synthesizer, which have been created to generate sounds, which standard synths aren’t supposed to do easily.

For ambiences I would recommend to check out

Both are praised to be a sound-designers-dream. They provide modularity and many high quality FX modules to achieve complex ambient sounds and drones.

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Paul Stretch and Reaper timestretch algos, pushed to the extreme, are great for creating drones and soundscapes from basically any source.
Make sure you filter out unwanted frequencies at both extremes of the spectrum.

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Some Akaizer for those old school Jungle time stretches

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You can also use serato sample for drones etc. it can do some pretty extreme stretching, not just run of the mill tempo based stuff, plus it’s got all the filtering options and chromatic playback mode, reverse and whatnot…

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