Paulstretch – Super simple shortcut for intros and more

Hey again, welcome to the Blog! Today I want to present to you a very interesting software for music making: Paulstretch. And I’ll tell you right away: it’s free.

We’re going to take a look at Paulstretch and after talking about it’s features, imma explain why this is a must have if you struggle with making intros for your songs. ‘Pauls Extreme Sound Stretching’ is a standalone tool where you can import audio files and stretch them without changing the pitch if you don’t want to. Also you won’t hear any of these gnarly artifacts you get when you stretch a clip with your normal built-in DAW stretching tool.

That’s the basics. But I tell you, with this thing you can drift into absurdity.

Why? Let’s go through it step by step. Once you’ve imported a file from your computer you can choose different settings in the main window of Paulstretch to stretch your sound.

There are different algorithms to choose from and you can opt for shortening, stretching and (suspense…)

HYPERSTRETCHING

Yeah, hyperstretching is where I gets real.

Choosing one of these three modes determines the value you can apply to the stretching. Take a look at these couple of screenshots. In the brackets it says how long the processed audio would be.

This is real. You can make a millions of years long audio file out of, say a minute of raw material. Of course no normal computer would be able to store such a big file but in principle it works. The longest I’ve done is 24 hours or so. The file is hilariously long but Paulstretch really stretches the original sound to the length you want.

How does Paulstretch sound?

Good. That’s the best about this. It actually produces pleasing sounds. But all joking aside, here is a before and after example.

But that’s not all

There is a second page with more adjustment options. You can pitch shift the audio, you can dial in lower or higher octaves of the sound to taste and more. What’s especially useful is the tonal/noise slider. If you put the slider at maximum noise, Paulstretch will focus on the noisy aspects of the stretched audio and vice versa.

Here is an example:

So as you can see Paul’s Extreme Sound Stretch is one hell of a tool and you can get real freaky with it. I probably don’t need to emphasize how much of a must have this is for ambient musicians. Just pop in any sound, get in the right settings – boom. Ambient album done (please don’t take this seriously, you know what I mean).

In the beginning I said that this is a great workaround if you’re struggling to get good intros for your songs. Let me explain why.

Paulstretch as a shortcut for intros

Let’s say you’ve got a nice loop going or you’ve already completed a full main section. But you’re struggling to find a good start for an intro. This is where Paulstretch comes in. Take any melodic part of your song. The main melody will probably work best. It might help if you reduce it to just the most important notes/chords. Stretch it to the length you need, apply reverb to taste and there you go.

Your intro probably isn’t even near finished now but you now have a very solid base. It’s guaranteed to make sense musically and it’ll spark new inspiration for new sounds that make up a full intro eventually. On top of that you probably don’t have to create a new pad sound for the ambience anymore. Instead you got a really smooth sound that fits the sound of your song and maybe even teasers the main part or melody.

Where to get it

Go to this website made by the creator to download the software. You also have the option to donate if you wanna support the project further.
I hope you liked what you saw and heard today, maybe you wanna try it out yourself now! Let me know if you have any experience with Paulstretch already. Make sure to the check out the other blog posts and my socials below. Until next time.