Sound Quality: Auto-Warped vs Unwarped

[Jorge3]

When I freeze and flatten a track, I get a warped clip, by default set to

• Beats
  Transients
  Loop Back-and-Forth

(This happens in spite of the fact that, in the Preferences, "Auto-Warp Long Samples" is turned off and "Loop/Warp Short Samples" is set to "Unwarped One Shot".) Pseudo warp markers are automatically added, often numerous and at off-grid places based on whatever algorithm. These markers may be useful when later on I want to transpose the clip or change the song's tempo; if I know I won't do that, I tend to unwarp the clip so as to remove all the markers, just to make sure the origianl (pre-flattening) sound texture is preserved.

Is this a valid concern? Can the automatic warping itself (with no tweaking) make any difference to the unwarped sound? If it can, how do I turn it off by default?

[pgmjsd]

When I freeze and flatten a track, I get a warped clip, by default set to

• Beats
  Transients
  Loop Back-and-Forth

(This happens in spite of the fact that, in the Preferences, "Auto-Warp Long Samples" is turned off and "Loop/Warp Short Samples" is set to "Unwarped One Shot".) Pseudo warp markers are automatically added, often numerous and at off-grid places based on whatever algorithm. These markers may be useful when later on I want to transpose the clip or change the song's tempo; if I know I won't do that, I tend to unwarp the clip so as to remove all the markers, just to make sure the origianl (pre-flattening) sound texture is preserved.

Is this a valid concern? Can the automatic warping itself (with no tweaking) make any difference to the unwarped sound? If it can, how do I turn it off by default?

If you're talking about the results of the freeze, no. The results of the freeze are just like any other sample: all warping is non-destructive. Turn it on, turn it off, change the warp markers all you like, it doesn't affect the sample at all, only the playback. Even then, there are settings for warp that will play back the sample as is (e.g. the tempo hasn't changed). The Live manual covers this in great detail.

[Tarekith]

This is one of my main frustrations with Live, there's a lot of operations that turn warping back on, even if you don't want it on. Can it affect the sound quality? Yes, if you Complex or Complex Pro, the others are fine as long as you don't change your project tempo. I still recommend people turn it off if they don't need it though.