Anemond has announced the release of a VST3/AU plugin and standalone application for extreme timestretching.
Radically slowing down playback, Sloom transforms sounds into smooth, malleable matter that can be expressively modified with a unique spectral shaping module.
Timestretching a sound means slowing it down without changing its pitch. When the slowing down is extreme, the original sound turns into a slowly evolving, ambient soundscape. When the stretching factor is very high (in the hundreds or thousands), the result tends to sound more and more static. To avoid that, Sloom includes a set of spectral modification tools that breathe some dynamics back into the timbre.
The first is a spectral shaping module that allows you to graphically modify, in real-time, the resulting spectrum. In this way, it is possible to filter out single harmonics and partials, or to easily separate noisy and harmonic parts of the sound. The spectral shaping can be manual or based on an adaptive spectral envelope curve that fits the current spectral profile.
There is also a modulation section that applies an LFO to the spectral profile, creating regular patterns following sinusoidal or sawtooth-like variations. Finally, a pair of randomness dials allows you to control the degree of phase and position randomness of the algorithm.
Sloom includes 5 different timestretching algorithms:
- Wide: Producing a large stereo field.
- Narrow: Which preserves the original stereo contents.
- Rough: Producing a more aggressive sound containing pitch artifacts and beatings.
- Robotic: Producing a single-pitched synthetic sound.
- Hybrid: A mixture between the “robotic” and “wide” algorithms.
Sloom can operate on both live audio input, based on recording an input buffer of up to 5 minutes, or on sound files in WAV, AIFF, FLAC, or MP3 format, without length limitation.
Conceived as a sound design tool to explore radical timbre modifications, Sloom easily creates textures for ambient tracks, video soundtracks, events, or art installations that can potentially span hours, days, or even much longer. However, it should not be used for precise, transient-preserving stretching, which is outside its scope of application.
Available for Windows and Mac, Sloom is available for purchase for 39 EUR. A free demo version runs for 20 minutes at a time (loading and saving are disabled).
More information: Anemond
