Fucking Warping!!!

[GDOGG]

Have been using ableton for a little time now and but warping still gets me. I've watched quite a few tutorials and they all cover the same stuff, find the first beat, set the 1.1 point align the transients, go through, if it goes off beat later touch it up etc etc but none of them have given me a fool proof way of warping all my songs. My main gripe is that I haven't found a tutorial where the song is really off beat. In my dj set file on ableton, I've loaded up all my songs that I'd ever want to play and have been going through trying to warp them, some work a lot better than others and it's these ones that are massively sped up or slowed down that I need help sorting out and so far I haven't found anything that really covers it

Any advice

[Tarekith]

Check out Medway's video on YouTube..

[dancing Ray]

Maybe for some basic rhythm theory you should take a lesson or two from a drummer?

If you know what you are doing, warping quite straight forward, imo.

[JuanSOLO]

If it's WAY off beat it takes WAY more work.

I have a few sets for warping, they are catagorized by genera, i.e FUNK. I usually bring all the songs in I will eventually warp for that genera. I go through as many as I can stand with a first pass. I render them to a folder.

Later when I try some out, if I find one that is messed up, I just go back to that set and fix it and re-render.

[Forge.]

.. some work a lot better than others and it's these ones that are massively sped up or slowed down that I need help sorting out and so far I haven't found anything that really covers it

Any advice

usually this comes down to not fully grasping what warping is doing - i.e. you are forcing the track to fit to LIVE's tempo, so when it is properly warped it can sound really weird if the original track has lots of tempo variations. Like you say, sped up or slowed down

So in other words, you have to just focus on making sure the 1,2,3,4 is always in the same place - along with Live's metronome, no matter how strange the audio sounds at the time.

then what you can do is things like make different clips for different parts of the song that are at different tempos and put them on scenes that are named after the tempo (i.e. 128BPM) so they will change the tempo to match the changes in the song when you trigger the scene

This is one of the biggest issues people have trying to DJ with Live, because with Live everything has to lock to that global tempo.

But also, as JuanSolo said, if they are way off, it's a lot more work to get it right - you might need to warp 1 bar at a time. But so long as you hit save you only have to do it once.

but for electronic music, or any music where the tempo is pretty consistent, the set 1.1.1 here, warp from here method works in 98% of cases IMO.

One other point, if you're using dodgy MP3s off the internet sometimes this can throw Live off for some reason. Don't know why, but I've seen it happen a lot....erm on other people's computers who use dodgy MP3s!

[niksG]

you may saw the medway's vedio on youtube....

[GDOGG]

then what you can do is things like make different clips for different parts of the song that are at different tempos and put them on scenes that are named after the tempo (i.e. 128BPM) so they will change the tempo to match the changes in the song when you trigger the scene

how'd you go about doing this? All my tracks are pretty much in time and on beat, and yeah i agree a lot of the housey tunes with a 4/4 kick are pretty easy but my main problem is the speeding up of certain parts of the track. you said you can make different clips but isn't this a bit of a hassle ie. haven't you got to get the timing spot on moving from one part of the track to another, especially if stuff like vocals etc are included?

[jackrabbit]

When I am warping stuff and finding it hard as the kick is not that defined I find it helpful to load up a drum machine and create a very short snappy quiet kick which plays constantly and use this to get my song warped more accurately to. If all tunes are done like this theres no reason any songs should have a beat off.

[jeffplaysmoog]

Try warping some pop/rock from the 60s. I did "Let's Stay Together" the other day and it is a good example a song that was not recorded with a click. Also some Zeppelin or Funkadelic (for a bit more swing)...

[nylarch]

Keep in mind sometimes its best to forget about the kick and focus on the 2 and 4 or sometimes just the 4. Sometimes a percussion-y loop or a break is really random and then always hits on the 4 and its very clear where that warp marker should go so you can use that to your advantage.

[beats me]

Live’s fatal flaw as a DJ application is that you can’t adjust and compensate for tempo fluctuations on the fly as is needed for so many songs recorded by actual musicians.

And warping things ahead of time often sucks the life and feeling out of those songs as well.

[Forge.]

I was warping some african drumming the other night, and mostly I was doing it 1 bar at a time just adjusting the first warp marker so that it is on the first beat of the bar, but occasionally I would need to warp on beat 2, 3 or 4 say if the djembe plays some fast notes that overlap and any of the beats are less clear.

Put it this way - on difficult tracks, warping can be tedious and take a little while, but if you click save you should only need to do it once.

Of course another benefit once you have fully warped tracks like this is that you can put them in arranger and set them to 'master' so that the global tempo follows the tempo of the track and you don't need to worry about using scenes to change tempo.

[GDOGG]

then what you can do is things like make different clips for different parts of the song that are at different tempos and put them on scenes that are named after the tempo (i.e. 128BPM) so they will change the tempo to match the changes in the song when you trigger the scene

[/quote]

care to elaborate how you do this anyone? I've been warping away some dubstep and drum and bass and it's all on beat but slowed down, still haven't found anything that conclusively demonstrates how to sort these egs out. noticeably a lot of the tracks used in demos are usually housey 4/4 kick numbers which are a piece of piss by comparison

[Khazul]

Not aimed at OP, but I have to wonder if many of the struggles people have with warping is really a struggle with picking apart the rhythm and natural tempo of the clip they are trying to warp rather than the mechanics of warping?

I think when you crack that - then warping and looping itself is really easy.

[jimmynitcher]

Drum n bass and Dubstep still have definite and fairly unchanging rhythms that were made with machines - it shouldn't be any harder than a house track.
Why don't you name one you find hard and we can maybe help more..