Am I conceptually missing the boat on warping?

[morpheus555]

Here's my situation:

I used my Novation Circuit to sequence 2 other synths, then direct recorded the audio of all 3 into Ableton. I did not have the circuit midi synced to Ableton, because I'm still learning and I did it wrong. However, the tempo of the song I recorded should be a consistent 60 bpm, per the Circuit's tempo. The project tempo in the Ableton file is 120 bpm, twice that of the actual song.

So I've been trying to get the 3 resultant audio tracks to line up on Ableton's grid, so I can more easily add midi tracks, overdubs, etc. I can't figure it out. Using any sort of warping just messes up the tempo of the recorded song, which does not need tampering. Trying to just nudge all the tracks onto the grid also doesn't work because the downbeats somehow don't line up despite the audio being exactly 1/2 the tempo of the project.

So is this even something I can do? Get the song to snap to a grid WITHOUT adjusting the tempo or fiddling with a hundred warp markers? Am I missing the boat?

I've been just live playing new tracks because I can't figure out how to use the grid in my favor. This works, but isn't really what I was intending.

[yur2die4]

You probably won’t need 100 markers. But it does pay to spend a little time familiarizing yourself with the concept of warping.

If the beat of your clip is consistent and electronic, it should help make the clip much easier to warp. Even better if it has clear and strong visible transients. If the transients are hard to see for some reason, then a good help is if you happen to know the original tempo of the clip.

Basically. Have a marker on a clear downbeat towards the beginning of the clip. Then, don’t make a market yet. Just grab transients and push or pull them so that the clip generally appears to be on the grid. Perfection not necessary yet but it should still be very very clearly on the grid. If your set is half or double the tempo of the clip in theory, then you should be able to just use the same tempo as the Live set you’re in. Don’t ‘type’ this tempo into the Seg. BPM box. But keep an eye on it, and ideally it should be close to the tempo of your set.

When you’re visually lining things up. The marker on the first downbeat should not move. But the waveform should kinda nudge to conform to the beat grid. Go down maybe 4 bars and check it Without adding a marker. Then go down 8 bars and 16. Around there you could add a marker. By going so far down before adding any markers, you’re making it easier on yourself. At this point you should barely have to add any markers at all. If why. Possibly even be able to scroll to the end of the clip and maybe add a marker on the last clear downbeat. This is all assuming that it is a steady, electronically made audio clip.

[morpheus555]

Thank you very much for this response - it's been quite helpful.

I rolled up my sleeves and went to work.

What I found is Live kept thinking the clips were 136 bpm, not 120 as I thought. I just stuck with it until I had stuff sounding right. Later I double checked my Circuit, and sure enough the tempo of that session is 68, not 60. The circuit's blocky "font" makes 8's and 0's look similar.

So now I have another question. I've got 2 of the simpler tracks nice and warped, but I put off the 3rd track because it's a dense wall off fuzzed bass that's difficult to spot the correct transients. I know, from watching various tutorial videos (I've watched so many my eyes are crossing) that you can warp multiple tracks at once. So my question is - can I use one of my correctly warped tracks to warp the tricky bass track or have I shot myself in the foot by starting in on them one at a time?

Not a big deal if I've accidentally created more work for myself, because I need the practice, but I'm well aware that there are better ways of doing pretty much everything I've learned with this software.

Thanks again!

PS- This video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iDiP5Y_1gI

[yur2die4]

Place a warped clip and the bass clip on Arrangement View. Set the Warped clip to control the tempo of Live with the Master/Slave button. Make sure the bass clip is unwarped. Actually, you might even want it unwarped before you do this, and deleted analysis file, having warp files when you drag in turned Off before you drag the bass clip in.

Line the bass clip up so it matches along with the warped clip. Then turn on Warp on the bass clip. Live will add markers to the bass clip that are the same as those on the warped clip.

1. There might be an easier way, I think you can replace one file with another with the same markers. I usually just do the method I’ve described though as it makes the most sense to me.

2. This is assuming that both were recorded at exactly the same tempo with the same tempo changes (if any). Otherwise they might not match up and it won’t make any sense.

[wavescapes]

I've been warping for decades and I do a lot of untrackable guitars with electronic/techno. Sometimes you just have to do things the old fashioned way ... and listen and mark accordingly then line up to your tempo grid. For the non tempo precise linear music I have to actually count it out in my head and drop markers where I think there'd be a 2nd, 4th, 12th ..etc down beat. More or less depending on how granular I want to be. It's time consuming, but no one else is going to do it and automation is way off when it comes to anything that drifts. I've also had that scenario where a song was 120 bpm but Ableton saw it as 60, I just doubled the bpm rate in the track and everything was fine.