Re: Stretching words

[Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com>]

On 21 aug 2007, at 17.33, Veda, Qua wrote:

>  Remember the "Max Headroom" talking head character on TV?
> The stretching effect I'm seeking could be something like that, but
> hopefully not as robotic sounding.  Anyone know how that max headroom
> effect is done?

I've never heard Max Headroom but an educated guess gives that the  
voice may have been created with this classic technique:

1. Keep the audio to be "stretched" as an audio file.
2. In some music software, make a playback loop of the file.
3. Minimize the loop length until only one tiny slice is looping,  
making a buzzing sound.
4. Align the loop's start point and loop point to a controller. Now  
regard the loop as "a window" that you can move through the entire  
audio file. Forwards or backwards. When the looping "playback window"  
moves by a syllable it will sound more stretched the slower you move it.

First sampler that made this production technique popular was the  
hardware Emax sampler (12 bit). I

Greetings from Sweden

Per Boysen
www.boysen.se (Swedish)
www.looproom.com (international)