  We propose a new algorithm for time stretching music signals based on the
theory of nonstationary Gabor frames (NSGFs). The algorithm extends the
techniques of the classical phase vocoder (PV) by incorporating adaptive
time-frequency (TF) representations and adaptive phase locking. The adaptive TF
representations imply good time resolution for the onsets of attack transients
and good frequency resolution for the sinusoidal components. We estimate the
phase values only at peak channels and the remaining phases are then locked to
the values of the peaks in an adaptive manner. During attack transients we keep
the stretch factor equal to one and we propose a new strategy for determining
which channels are relevant for reinitializing the corresponding phase values.
In contrast to previously published algorithms we use a non-uniform NSGF to
obtain a low redundancy of the corresponding TF representation. We show that
with just three times as many TF coefficients as signal samples, artifacts such
as phasiness and transient smearing can be greatly reduced compared to the
classical PV. The proposed algorithm is tested on both synthetic and real world
signals and compared with state of the art algorithms in a reproducible manner.
