For music I didn't go beyond the 2x setting, but the more extreme settings available are great for creating and treating special effects. In short, Pitch 'n Time will reach the limits of the sound of the source material before artifacts from the tempo-change processing become a problem.

The slowing down wasn't as spectacular, but again, that was down to the limitations of the sound and what happens when you slow down a performance by extreme amounts. It was easily handling speed increases of up to 50 percent, and it was a revelation to find that the first problem to become noticeable was vibrato on the vocal and strings becoming too fast. I tried the drum & bass track first, which seemed fine, but where Pitch 'n Time really started to show what it is made of is with the rock opera and solo ballad clips.

I mainly used the same samples that I used in the my recent shootout of Pro Tools limiter plug-ins, as they cover a wide range of material to test out Pitch 'n Time 's abilities. Pitch 'n Time's Variable Time-stretch panel allows you to create ritardando effects.The tempo adjustment is nothing short of stunning. In addition, right at the top of the window are some general controls which include a range selection from 2x to 8x as well as two different algorithm modes, one which suits more tonal sounds and the other which is better on more transient sounds. Finally, at the bottom is the Pitch section, which also has three modes - Fixed, Variable and Varispeed. Next there is the Length section, which shows the start, end and length of your selection you can edit the source or target data from here and the information in the corresponding section will be updated. Starting from the top there is the Tempo section, which offers three modes - Fixed, Variable and Morphing. The Pitch 'n Time window has three main sections.

Pitch 'n Time Pro works as an Audiosuite plug-in in Pro Tools, and is compatible with both Mac OS X and Windows XP. It's also possible to treat multiple tracks (up to 48 of them!) simultaneously and retain their phase coherence. However, although it is an off-line plug-in, Serato have cleverly enabled automation options that you would otherwise only find in a real-time plug-in, thus making post-production ritardandos ('rits') possible. It isn't available in any real-time format, as these require a plug-in to have a 1:1 input-to-output ratio in respective of the number of samples - time-stretching, which involves changing the number of samples, can only be done with a file-based plug-in. Serato's Pitch 'n Time Pro is a plug-in that enables you to vary the pitch and/or the tempo of your source material. Serato's Pitch 'n Time has carved out a reputation as one of the best time-stretching and pitch-shifting plug-ins out there, with special features including 'morphing' time-stretch and the ability to recreate varispeed effects.

Serato pitch n time pro 3