Ableton Forum

I would like to see some settings available for auto-warping - by which I mean, when you import a piece of audio, or record some audio, and Live guesses the placement of the warp markers.

Currently Live puts warp markers a bit of the way up each note - assuming that a bit of the sound occurs before the beat.

This might be a fair assumption, but the only problem is that if you leave the markers there and then do some warping, the quality is poor because you get artefacts happening half way through the notes. If you move the warp markers right to the start of each note - as I do - then warp, then you don't get these artefacts.

I'd like to see an auto-warp setting with a slider from left to right, where left means you'd like Live to guess the warp markers to be right at the start of each sound (ie in each trough just as the note starts), or to the right which would be at the peak of a sound - with the default being probably somewhere near the left side.

If anyone knows how to do this anyway please let me know!

Thanks

Hey, if you are getting artefacts you should try complex or complex pro, this should solve this.

You can change your global warp setting in the preferences too.

Also live creates transient markers on each clear transient so if you want you could easily quantise it via hitting cmd A, then cmd U

Complex and complex pro reduce the quality of the audio.

"Beats" mode is the best way to warp while maintaining audio quality for me because it simply plays from one transient to the next.

So long as you tell it to then just stop - instead of then going backwards as the default is (so changing it from two opposite arrows to the arrow with a line at the end) - then it's just playing what you recorded but sometimes with gaps in between - which is fine if there are natural gaps there anyway.

The transients markers that Live creates on each clear transient is what I'm talking about.

Live creates them a bit of the way up each transient - whereas I would like it create them right at the start of each transient ie right before the amplitude starts to rise.

Because Live creates transient markers a little way up each transient, when you start to warp - and quantising would count too - the volume jumps from one transient to the next - creating artefacts.

When I move the transient markers to before each transient, these artefacts disappear - hence the request for Live to do this automatically so I wouldn't have to spend hours doing it

Sorry but no, you have it wrong

beats is for drums and percussion or anything with sharp transits

tones is for monophonic material like vocals and bass

texture is for poly stuff

then complex is perfect for a mix of material like a track or if are having problems with the other modes

lazlo_funktek wrote:I would like to see some settings available for auto-warping - by which I mean, when you import a piece of audio, or record some audio, and Live guesses the placement of the warp markers.

Currently Live puts warp markers a bit of the way up each note - assuming that a bit of the sound occurs before the beat.

This might be a fair assumption, but the only problem is that if you leave the markers there and then do some warping, the quality is poor because you get artefacts happening half way through the notes. If you move the warp markers right to the start of each note - as I do - then warp, then you don't get these artefacts.

I'd like to see an auto-warp setting with a slider from left to right, where left means you'd like Live to guess the warp markers to be right at the start of each sound (ie in each trough just as the note starts), or to the right which would be at the peak of a sound - with the default being probably somewhere near the left side.

If anyone knows how to do this anyway please let me know!

Thanks

I get what you're saying, I would also like to see something like this.

The best explanation of warping on the interwebs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8w9fI9v19w

I personally avoid the complex modes and only use them as a last resort, they really do destroy the quality of audio.

wearemindflux wrote:Sorry but no, you have it wrong

beats is for drums and percussion or anything with sharp transits

tones is for monophonic material like vocals and bass

texture is for poly stuff

then complex is perfect for a mix of material like a track or if are having problems with the other modes

Thanks for replying, but I'm already aware of what each warp mode is designed/suggested for. That sounds like an annoyed response from me - it isn't - just no other way to say it

I've used Ableton Live since version 1 and have many many hours of warping experience, so for me I just use whichever warp mode sounds best.

Often it'll match their suggested use, but just as often it won't.

I do use all of the different modes too - I don't think beats is best full stop or anything.

I'm just saying that for percussive parts - like short violin notes off the string - which appear clearly as very separate bits of audio in the visualisation - beats is the best outcome for me because it literally plays the audio as it was recorded - from one warp marker to the next.

If it reaches the next marker early (due to warping) it'll just jump to the next section before finishing the current one. If it reaches the end before reaching the next one it'll do whatever you told it to in the setting. I tell it to just stop for this particular use.

This means that once I move the warp markers to the very start of each bit of audio (not a little way in) - you get a result that just plays what you recorded with no artefacts - great! But the work involved in this is very time consuming.

If you leave the warp markers as Ableton Live suggests - a little way up each bit of audio - then whenever it reaches the next marker early (due to warping), then it'll jump to the next section, but jumping from one amplitude to another seems to create artefacts which don't sound good.

Even if this isn't exactly the reason for the artefacts, I just always get artefacts when I leave the markers a little way in as Live suggests at first.

Another suggestion might be also have a setting where you can choose the steepness of the crossfading that Live does as it plays from one section to the next - as this must already be a part of the way Beats works otherwise it would be full of glitches from section to section.

I was just letting you know in case you did not know.

Yeah - all good