Ableton Forum

I was sharing with my friend who just got into Live a special technique I sometimes use to get more playful with rhythms and transform a song in a way that is very unique. So here is my copy and paste:

"I like how I can play with a song that I warp in beats mode by playing with the larger quantization settings.

I was warping this track. Turns out it was in 3/4. I warped it in 4/4 mode still and set markers only on the downbeat.

If I play it At tempo, let's say 90bpm. It plays with the triple notes on every beat.

Now, with the 'Beats' mode of warping, it cuts the track up at whatever intervals you set it to. When I set it to 1/4. It starts each beat of the clip's audio at each beat of Live's timeline.

Since I'm dealing with 3 notes per beat, if I increase the tempo by 1/3 of the original (90+30=120bpm), then exactly one third of every quarter note gets interrupted by the next beat, essentially turning it into 4/4 and eliminating the last note of every beat.

If that sounds boring, you can switch it to 1/2 or 1 bar instead, you still cut off 1/3 of the track and create these fucked up alternate patterns.

In reverse, you can slow it down by 1/3. What this will do is create an extra note's worth of space. Turning 3 notes per beat into 4. And the Beats mode warp setting lets you choose 3 different modes for handling that extra space. Either it repeats, reverses, or leaves a blank.

So this can be applied to many different things. Turning 7/8 to 8/8, or 4/4 to 6/8. Etc."

so, like Brubecks' Take Four? -;p

Oh man now I have to try that sometime!

Perfect joke haha

You could probably do take 6 or 8 if you mess around.

But, technically, I think it relies on a steady perfectly synced beat in order to work. Darn. Maybe warped, rendered, and then given 'the treatment!'

Honestly,
I can not replicate the syncopation that you are referring to. I can see how other tracks and effects (like delays) would make the polyrhythm apparent, but a beat warped track on the 1/4 note is going to sound the same in any meter if the master tempo is that same downbeat. Wouldn't even matter if the clip meter and the master meter didn't correspond.

Yes, changing tempos at divisions of the original tempo can create triplet times. I do believe your results, and I love this kind of stuff. I'm just wondering what you're referring to with 1/4 notes being dropped, for example, and would like to hear it for myself.

Cheers!

In Beats mode you can change the divisions into 1/2 and 1 bar.

So if you had a beat with original tempo at 80 bpm, set to 1 bar interval divisions in Beats mode, and raised bpm by 10, one eigth of the beat would disappear at the end, as each new bar suddenly interrupts. So it'd only be playing out 7 of the 8.

Or you can go in reverse and take your 80 bpm clip down to 70, and then 9 out of 8 8ths would play.


Or you can take a 7/8 track (must have very tight and consistent bpm), and instead of warping it 'properly' on every beat, warp it as a 4/4, and only put the markers on the downbeats. Then using the same method you can make a beat come in or out.

It doesn't always sound great, and when djing, it can lead to more problems, or it can lead to new weird options.

I just figured I'd mention it in the Tips & Tricks thread

Wow, this is profound! Thanks so much for this.

And I haven't even tried it with odd meters yet; just tried to rhythmically get a feel for the divisions and work out the fractions for dropping notes. It takes some practice counting and anticipating the outcome, particularly when a loop might already have some syncopation.

And it'll take me some time to think about the connotations for beat matching and how I'd pull it off in a dj setting. I had all but given up keeping track of meter because I couldn't find a way to force syncopations like this. Definitely worth adding to the arsenal. Maybe master scenes without stop button and named after interesting meters? Or clyphx tempo multipliers? So, let's see, what's the equivalent fraction of 4/4 at the same tempo but in 6/8?

Shortening the 1/4 note by 1/5 by increasing the tempo by *1.2 on a 5/4 tune (Take 5, 2+2=5, Count to 5) makes a very stable and heavy swing.

Changing the preserve scope to bar or half bar still makes audibly unpredictable results to my untrained ears. As does adding beats to the measure by slowing a 1-bar preserved clip down by some divisible measure. Some triplet time with the metronome gives a few hints away.

You can create a similar result with -5 in the transpose or +7 on a steady 4/4 beat at the bar level preserve setting. Really helps you look under the hood of how this warping algorithm actually works. Without the granular synthesis between the warp markers pinning things down, the transpose is changing playback speed. Whereby in Re-Pitch mode, tempo changes adjust playback and consequently change the pitch of the clip.

Hey! Great tip! The Transpose.

I don't recall if I've fully explored that avenue. Definitely something to experiment with. A lot of producers lately love the pitched up of down vocal effect (although a lot of it is formant repitching), so this could be a fun way to not only take an old sample and repitch it, but also re-time it

And yeah, the math sorts out for the most part as long as people have an understanding of Intervals.

Definitely a great tip.

And yes. Experiments like this really do give you a window into what makes warping work as a whole. I can usually emulate beats mode warping in Sampler using LFOs and Arpeggiator. But it's not always so pretty haha