BandLab‘s AudioStretch app has hit the top of the Apple App Store charts for paid music apps in the US and UK. Though the app had been in stores for several years, it saw a massive spike in downloads recently, more than 20-30 times what the app experienced previously. As of early June, downloads were up 420% month over month.
Why? One word: TikTok.
AudioStretch slows down audio without changing the pitch. It was designed to make it easier for musicians to master that lightning-fast solo or find the right register for their voices. Users can listen note by note, or loop sections they need to hear over and over. It’s been championed by musicians like Jordan Rudess of progressive metal band Dream Theater, who was voted “Best Keyboardist in the World” for his intricate work.
Yet AudioStretch also lets you manipulate audio and video files, changing the speed and making some seriously quirky manipulations. TikTok creators discovered this feature and ran with it, racking up more than 7.3 million views for their videos. (See a sample of these videos here.)
“We brought AudioStretch into the BandLab family several years ago because its time stretching and pitch-scaling technology was so good,” explains BandLab CEO Meng Ru Kuok. “Great musicians used and highlighted it, but we never imagined a whole new creator community would embrace it.”
Part of BandLab’s expanding creator tools, AudioStretch has been fully integrated into BandLab’s Mix Editor, giving BandLab users access to its features. Its recent renewed success shows how creator tools can morph in the hands of new users with different goals and ideas. “Our mission is to make music and audio creation tools available to as many people as possible who have something they want to create,” Kuok notes. “It’s always a thrill when you see a tool unlock new forms of artistic expression or entertainment, as we’ve recently seen with AudioStretch.”