Warping Way Off

highmarcs · Post by **highmarcs** » Sun May 07, 2006 1:20 am

I used to play around with Live 4 and was pretty impressed with it. I have now purchased Live 5 and I am kind of regretting it. It seems to be not nearly as good at matching tempos of different audio clips, and not nearly as user friendly as Live 4.

Every time I go to sync up just two clips, they don't sink. I have to fuss about and I do mean FUSS with warp markers and that's just a nightmare. I have read numerous books, I have watched countless DVD and online tutorials, and I'm still clueless about the junk in the clip window. Sometimes Live lets me grab one warp marker and move just it and five other times it forces me to move all the other ones, so then I have to correct the next one and the next one and so on.

I end up having to place a marker at the begining of every transient, and moving everything because it's always way...off. And in the end, it still sounds like crap.

Now, stack a few Dr.Rex sample players inside your Reason deck and throw a different beat in each one and Reason syncs everything beautifully. I only wish Live was as good at this, it's kind of what I got Live for. Does anyone have ANY words of wisdom that can help sort out my problem?

longjohns · Post by **longjohns** » Sun May 07, 2006 4:44 am

did you make those rex files yourself?

highmarcs · Post by **highmarcs** » Sun May 07, 2006 8:54 am

No, I didn't. Why do you ask?

hambone1 · Post by **hambone1** » Sun May 07, 2006 9:03 am

I've warped 700+ tracks now. Some are definitely easier than others, but it's all down to practice. Autowarping works really well for me, and works particularly well on constant-tempo 4/4 tracks.

I assigned the warping shortcuts to a MIDI controller (midiStroke) to minimize the need to use the secretary keyboard, and practiced and memorized the mappings until they were second nature.

I don't use the waveforms when I warp. To me, they're irrelevant. This is an audio program, so I warp by ear.

peeddrroo · Post by **peeddrroo** » Sun May 07, 2006 9:10 am

hambone1 wrote: constant-tempo 4/4 tracks.

come on hambone1, if you have something to say, SAY IT!!!!

hambone1 · Post by **hambone1** » Sun May 07, 2006 9:11 am

Hey... I'm trying to be open-minded here and expand my musical horizons!

Also, adding silence to the beginning of tracks helps with autowarping. When you drag a track in to warp, click the 'edit' button to open the track in your preferred audio editor (I use Peak), add 3-4 seconds of silence at the beginning, save, close. The new track is opened automatically in Live. I'm convinced this 'breathing space' helps. (The Ableton guys who did the autowarping programming agree that this may help.)

longjohns · Post by **longjohns** » Sun May 07, 2006 2:57 pm

highmarcs wrote:No, I didn't. Why do you ask?

sorry, i just got lazy and erased everything after my question. dropping a wav into live vs. opening a .rex file in reason isn't a very good comparison.

comparing to recycle is closer.

just the fact of not having to use two programs is a big plus as far as i'm concerned

mercyplease · Post by **mercyplease** » Sun May 07, 2006 5:02 pm

hambone1 wrote: Autowarping works really well for me, and works particularly well on constant-tempo 4/4 tracks.

I don't use the waveforms when I warp. To me, they're irrelevant. This is an audio program, so I warp by ear.

Hello Ham
you always say autowarping works well for you and I believe you but it has never worked well for me despite my numerous best efforts.
I think Live 5 warping is different in some way from live 4 warping which is the version I started warping audio with so perhaps Im stuck in time with live fours operations?
I havent geled with many aspects of Live 5s fiddlyness compared to lIve 4 uncluttered simple approach. Im hoping live 6 will improve on some of live 5s less than desireable fiddly bits

hambone1 · Post by **hambone1** » Sun May 07, 2006 6:54 pm

I do hope the autowarping algorithm is better in 6, but I do have good luck with 5. I think it's a matter of practice, and finding what works for you.

Sometimes I can warp ten tracks in 20 minutes, then take half an hour to do just one.

I'm looking forward to the release of the Redsound SoundBite Micro. For synching video and lighting to audio, it should eliminate the need to warp the audio tracks at all.

highmarcs · Post by **highmarcs** » Sun May 07, 2006 11:57 pm

think Live 5 warping is different in some way from live 4 warping which is the version I started warping audio with so perhaps Im stuck in time with live fours operations?
I havent geled with many aspects of Live 5s fiddlyness compared to lIve 4 uncluttered simple approach. Im hoping live 6 will improve on some of live 5s less than desireable fiddly bits

I totally agree with you mercyplease. Live 4 was so...much more user friendly. Maybe Live 5 is more powerfull, but if you have to relearn so many aspects of the program and fiddle with so much crap to use it, it's disheartening. I wish they could give me back Live 4 but with the new Complex warp algorithm. It's not just syncing clips that I find is worse and much harder to do than in Live 4, there are other things in Live 5 which I have personally found, make things overall more difficult and much less intuitive than Live 4. The new "library" which is supposed to make everything easier constantly gets on my nerves and is just one such thing. I too, hope Live 6 finds a way to get back to live 3 or 4's much more intuitive and user friendly approach. I used to use Live to auto sync things and now I'm REX'ing things and throwing them in Reason more and more.

What's so ironic is that Live 5 bills itself as making warping EASIER!... With the new Auto warp and all that. I haven't found this to be the case at all.

Pepehouse · Post by **Pepehouse** » Mon May 08, 2006 2:33 am

Autowarp sucks, it doesn't work at all, but I´m quite new to Live and I warp my tracks in a few seconds, I don't understand why you complain guys.
What it really helps in Live 5 is the "warp from here" command, use it.

John Sweet · Post by **John Sweet** » Mon May 08, 2006 6:59 pm

I also like "Warp X BPM from here."

If you thought you had it warped & the "feel" is still off when you're beatmatching, select a marker while they're playing & hit command-A to select all. Then zoom in really tight & use the l-r arrow keys to slide the whole song's markers until you feel them get in the pocket. It helps to have some stock loops in yr chosen style that you trust for this part.

You can also use this to warp songs where it's hard to continually find the downbeats. Find any recurring rhythmic sound, no matter wher it falls on the beat, then use a combo of "Set 1.1 here" & the sliding trick to find the downbeats in relation to it.

highmarcs · Post by **highmarcs** » Tue May 09, 2006 4:42 am

So all I have to do is: Press cntrl alt...release, slide this, click that, push this, select that...warp from here, warp from there, add silence to the beginning of clips, make sure all silence has been removed from the beginning of clips, use the metronome, don't use the metronome, use stock loops as guides...ugh....! I'm beginning to see from all the different postings and all the various warping tutorials I've viewed and all the countless "warping clinics" I've read in Sound on Sound, Future Music, Computer Music, and Music Tech Magazine, that NO ONE really knows how to use Live.

Everyone has come up with their own little mystical work arounds and rituals to get this software to simply do what it's supposed to do. I'm sure many people have recieved pleasant results implementing all this Ableton voodoo. I just don't have time or patience to take part in such activities. Maybe they'll get it right in 6. They had it damned near perfect already in 4. I hope so, because it's still a commendable program overall.

Three words describe version 5 though! Fussy, Fiddly and Fussy.

I've been playing around with the Melodyne studio demo for a few days and so far I LOVE it. It can quantize audio like midi, it does beat matching and pitch correction at the click of a button to boot. It seems to do everything I'm looking for, with MUCH less fuss than Live 5. I think it's time I ordered it up. If you haven't seen it in action check out the video on the Celemony website. It's fabulous. I think my love affair with Live is coming to a close.

highmarcs · Post by **highmarcs** » Tue May 09, 2006 4:50 am

Honestly. I've been reviewing all of my Live tutorials. I've been following the advice. I've tried some of the advice on this page and I still can't sync two simple stock loops that came with LIVE! Everyone says put the loops bpm in the clip window, and I do. Then when the warp markers are wrong, and I go to correct them, it changes the bpm I just put in the window. So then I have to go put the correct bpm of the clip back into the little window, and then it changes my warp markers that I so pain stakingly placed. I give up. I give up. I give up.

I know it sounds ironic but...LIVE is DEAD to me!

longjohns · Post by **longjohns** » Tue May 09, 2006 5:21 am

The warping technique you're describing there just sounds plain wrong.