Elastique Timestretch < 1080p >

At its core, elastique timestretch is a proprietary audio processing algorithm developed by the German company zplane development. Unlike simple time-stretching methods from the 1990s—which relied on cutting audio into tiny chunks (granular synthesis) and repeating or deleting them—elastique uses a sophisticated combination of transient preservation, formant correction, and harmonic reshaping.

The name "elastique" comes from the French word for elastic, perfectly describing what the algorithm does: it stretches or compresses audio in time without permanently altering its pitch, or shifts pitch without changing duration. elastique timestretch

One of the biggest failures in time-stretching is "transient smearing." When a drum hit is stretched, algorithms often blur the sharp attack, turning a punchy kick drum into a dull thud. Elastique utilizes advanced transient detection to lock the attack phase in place, ensuring that rhythms stay punchy even when heavily slowed down. At its core, elastique timestretch is a proprietary

| Feature | Elastique (Pro/3) | Phase Vocoder | WSOLA (Waveform Similarity) | |---------|------------------|---------------|-------------------------------| | Transient sharpness | Excellent | Poor (smearing) | Good | | Stationary tone quality | Very good | Good (but phasiness) | Moderate | | Pitch-shift + formant control | Yes (separate) | Limited | No | | Real-time low latency | Yes (special profiles) | No (high latency) | Yes (but lower quality) | | Artifacts at high stretch ratios (e.g., 4×) | Moderate (graceful degradation) | Severe (reverberant) | Severe (repetition artifacts) | One of the biggest failures in time-stretching is

Elastique TimeStretch is a high-quality algorithm for changing audio duration (time-stretch) and pitch independently. It preserves audio quality, minimizes artifacts (phasiness, transient smearing) and is widely used in DAWs, plugins, and real-time audio tools. There are several elastique variants (e.g., elastique Pro, elastique 3, elastique 3 Pro) optimized for different use-cases (transients, tonal material, solo/mono, multitrack).