Professional Quality Time Stretching | Pitch Shifting

Get inspired by the incomparable Premium Library which comprises not only convent-ional analog and FM synthe-sizers but also very interesting hybrid instruments, completely new kinds of synthesizers, extraordinary rhythm machines and much more. The presets, created by top sound-designers, will enable you to work with your luxurious fleet of synthesizers right away and get straight into production.

Prosoniq TimeFactory™ is a novel tool for both the PowerMac and Windows PC platform dedicated to perform high quality near-lossless time and pitch scaling on monophonic and polyphonic music signals. It uses the latest advances in DSP technology to achieve time scaling amounts of up to one third the original length, corresponding to a time stretching factor of 133% and more (or pitch scaling of up to 5 semitones) without audible loss in quality. This is as much as slowing down a complete music piece from 120 BPM to 90 BPM, or vice-versa.

Conventional methods used in todays DAW software and commercial applications either suffer from unpleasant harmonic distortion, timing inconsistencies and echoes even at small time scaling ratios, or introduce severe smearing or reverberation that makes the results inacceptable for professional audio purposes when applied to complete musical pieces.

TimeFactory™ now offers unprecedented audio quality, easily outperforming all known applications in both quality and achieved time scaling ratio. With TimeFactory™, you are free to choose the tempo of your recording at a result that is indistinguishable from the original within a large range of scaling ratios, without endlessly tweaking dozens of parameters.

Whether you wish to time scale individual sound files of a recording session or the final mixdown, whether you are processing classical or 'drum & bass' style music, TimeFactory™ is a simple click-and-go application for Mac and PC with straightforward user interface and easy to use batch processing capabilities. It accepts sound files in AIFF, SDII (Mac only) and WAVE file formats of any word length and sample rate, even 24bit 96kHz or split stereo files are no problem. No more worrying about the eventual outcome of time consuming parameter tweaking sessions, just set the desired time scaling ratio and click to process your audio files within minutes.

Prosoniq's proprietary timbreWizard algorithm allows for natural pitch shifts, avoiding the common 'munchkinization syndrome' you will hear when trying other software to do pitch shifting.

Key Features

• Batch Processing
• supports WAVE, SDII (on Mac), AIFF file formats
• supports split stereo files
• 8, 16 and 24bit file support, 22.05, 44.1, 48 and 96 kHz Sample Rate
• 24bit/96kHz compatible
• double click to edit any soundfile in your favorite editing program
• Transcribe Mode for crystal clear 200% time scaling of complete songs
• Pitch Shifting including formant correction
• High quality resampling with anti-aliasing for pitch shifting
• no sound coloration, no phasing with stereo files
• no timing inconsistencies
• input speed in new length, BPM or %
• new MPEX Time Scaling technology for best results at the first mouse click
• works with any material of any genre, be it classic, pop, rock, techno or other
• easy 'Save as...' capability for archiving files
• both Mac and PC version in a single box - no more worrying about switching platforms

Time Scaling (also known as 'Time Stretching', 'Time Compression/Expansion' and 'Time Correction') is the process to change a sound's length without changing its pitch. When transposing a sound by playing it back at a different speed, like when slowing down the playback speed of a tape recorder, it will play back at a different tempo but also at a different pitch. While this may be fine when tuning drum loops to match the speed of a recording it will make pitched sounds - like vocals - sound totally out of tune. Thus it is desired to provide a process that enables you to change duration and pitch of a recording independently from each other.

What's wrong with common techniques?

All methods commonly used in todays recording hard- and software are based on strict mathematical models. They do not really 'understand' the sound they process, they just force-fit it to the new tempo. Some of them look at the sound as being made up of a sum of simple sine tones, like a complex building can be made from simple shaped bricks. But what if your sounds don't have much in common with a sine tone? It's like trying to build a round dome from quadratic stones - you will end up by cutting and wearing them off to get a curved hull, this way losing material as dust - or losing the quality of your audio recording. Other methods simply scatter your audio files into thousands of little fragments, putting them together again to build a differently sized file. Ever tried to put back together a scattered coffee cup? You never get lucky with the result.

Simply put, all Time Scaling processes presently used are lossy processes by their nature. They alter the sound you process in unwanted ways, deteriorate its quality and their outcome is highly dependent on the source material.

What can be done about it?

Imagine listening to a piece of music, say a string quartet. Can you imagine the four players playing slower, but still at the same pitch? You surely can. Why don't you have a problem with this, while your computer will fail at the same task? Simply, because you understand what's being played, and your computer doesn't. So, if we could find a way to make your computer somehow understand what's being played, we could make a good Time Scaling.

What is MPEX and why is it better?

Prosoniq's main research interest during the last 8 years is to find out how our perception works, and how the processes involved can be successfully simulated in a computer software. As it turns out, the techniques developed during this research can be successfully applied to common problems, one of which is Time Scaling. By simulating the behaviour of a network of artificial nerve cell models the computer develops capabilities such as the ability to 'learn' and to 'generalize', ie. derive rules from a set of examples. Still a long way from being as sophisticated as a human, but still far better than anything else based on pure maths.

MPEX is an algorithm that simulates some properties of the human perception. It makes your computer 'learn' what's being played, much like you can learn a melody someone is whistling. For this, it uses a technique called 'Artificial Neural Networks', which is a computer simulation of the activities of human nerve cells. Our ear is very good at adapting and learning what is being presented to it, so if we simulate the processes that make our ear work the way it does, we will to some extent simulate a part of its abilities.

MPEX looks at your recording in regular intervals and 'learns' its musical aspects, and then tries to extend it in a natural sounding way. You can look at this as if you were an architect who builds a complicated building from a set of differently shaped stones, by selecting the stones who fit a given part of the building best. It is this 'intelligence' and flexibility in the sound representation that makes MPEX a better Time Scaling.