How many 'warp points' do you use per track?

[2neffoo]

Hi,

I've warped plenty of small audio files so I know how to do it, but when it comes to whole tracks (5-8 minutes), I was wondering roughly how many warp points you need for DJing. Is it 1 warp point per bar? 1 per 8 bars? 1 per 16 bars?

Thanks

P.S. I'm on version 8.1 so version 7 and below techniques may not apply.

[yur2die4]

In theory you could get away with warping a perfectly straight track using just one marker. As long as the grid lines up from beginning to end and never strays.

In practice you might want to add a few more just to tighten up the grid's alignment to the song.

It all comes to personal taste, and of course necessity. If a track fluctuates in tempo then you will probably need a lot more markers.

Experiment and see what you can get away with.

[2neffoo]

Thanks

[proteron]

What he says is correct. If you're using straight up dance tracks that have never made a transition to analog back to digital (e.g., not your records that you just converted to wav but, perhaps, something you made yourself which you know is perfectly in tempo) then you might not need much of a warp at all.

For most everything that I have had that is computer generated, even if it has been on analog before, i'll get a good start and good ending marked, then put another right at dead center. If it even needs that much.

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Your material also makes a difference though. And how tight you want it, at what tempo. For example, I've got some kind of funky live drum loops that sound pretty decent at their normal speed, and doing too much warping makes it sound like a drum machine (quantizing a human *may* defeat your purpose) - but when the speed is changed, that human factor gets multiplied into what sounds like mistakes. Warp in the key beats, leave the non-key beats loose to retain the feel. (e.g., warp in the downbeat kicks and the main upbeat snares... leave most cymbals and accidental/ghost snares alone unless they're just egregiously out of place).

Another thing that can really require more markers is dropping in an acapella vocal track. This isn't because the original vocalist was making mistakes but that sometimes it is a little more difficult to find the original start point since there isn't a beat or click recorded on the raw vocal line. For this I will end up putting in too many markers until I've found the native BPM as close as I feel like I care to and start getting reliable rhythm from each segment. I will then work my way backward from what sounds good to what I started with, removing unnecessary markers along the way. For a professionally recorded vocal (for example, a Tupac acapella) once you get past any arhythmic opening statements, you SHOULD expect that it too could be warped very minimally just like an all digital techno track. After all, they were singing/speaking to a click. It's just a matter of finding it.

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So that's the long answer, the short answer is "as many as you need or want" ... You can add in extra ones and drag them around for interesting rhythm changes/timestretch sounds.

[buzby]

if you happen to be using re-pitch mode for dj-ing then .. i read somewhere that placing multiple warp markers closer than 8 bars apart would mess with the sound

[mode:masters]

if you happen to be using re-pitch mode for dj-ing then .. i read somewhere that placing multiple warp markers closer than 8 bars apart would mess with the sound

Yep this is 100% right. Re-pitch is my preferred warping method for DJ'ing. Keep the markers as far apart as possible if using this method otherwise you will get some crazy pitch stepping.

I find that if you put your first marker in the right place and your bpm doesn't stray much usually 2-3 markers is enough. Try placing a second warp marker near where you would normally mix the next track in and snap it to a bar. This keeps the track in perfect sync as you actually mix to the next track.