[PD] Best practices for pitch shifting a sample?

[afleck at inventati.org]

Hello,

I started thinking about this problem because I was doing some frequency 
modulation, but when I tried to change the carrier frequency directly 
with notein and mtof~  there were sometimes unpredictable results (which 
can sometimes, but not always, be remedied by maintaining a fixed ratio 
between the carrier and modulation frequencies).

DAWs like Ableton allow you to select a sample (such as a kick drum) and 
then play it at a bunch of different pitches (i.e. with a midi 
keyboard). How do they accomplish this? Is it with variable delay?

I've been looking at the section on pitch shifting in Puckette's book 
(http://msp.ucsd.edu/techniques/latest/book-html/node115.html#sect7.pitchshift), 
but I thought I would ask if there's an easier way before I take the 
plunge.

I've tried granular synthesis but it doesn't preserve the timbre very 
well.

To be clear, I don't just want suggestions of externals, I actually want 
to program it myself (in pd-vanilla)

Best,
Andrea