Consolidating unwarped clips results in a warped clip

[alex.the.forge]

seems that warping enabled on a consolidated clip would have any effect on it's playback... regardless of whether it's rhythmically in-line with the tempo or not.

am i wrong?? the OP sounds like paranoia over the warp button being lit, as opposed to an actual problem (i.e. classic complaints revisited)

warp is on recorded clips and processed clips to expand the capabilities of what you can do to the clip, not to change how it plays back

I don't think it's a paranoia. Probably you live too much in the world of session view and loop based music. It's OK. What I am talking about is more similar to an instrumental music arrangement with over 20 tracks and over 100 recorded clips where the last thing I want to worry about is warp modes in these clips.

The problem is I HAVE TO change tempo sometimes in order to record various parts of a project at different tempo (piano), but of course I do not use warp mode for the recorded clips since I want to maintain pristine quality of the originally recorded sound. Once I change tempo, like you said, my warped consolidated clips will bring audible artifacts to originally recorded piano or field recording samples. OK, I can select all clips in the arrangement at some point and turn warp mode off for all of them, but having to remember doing it at some point is a no go....

I wish I could just disable auto-warping for the whole project. People work differently, long john. Consider paying some respect to other ways of working.

Andrejs

[alex.the.forge]

seems that warping enabled on a consolidated clip would have any effect on it's playback... regardless of whether it's rhythmically in-line with the tempo or not.

am i wrong?? the OP sounds like paranoia over the warp button being lit, as opposed to an actual problem (i.e. classic complaints revisited)

warp is on recorded clips and processed clips to expand the capabilities of what you can do to the clip, not to change how it plays back

I don't think it's a paranoia. Probably you live too much in the world of session view and loop based music. It's OK. What I am talking about is more similar to an instrumental music arrangement with over 20 tracks and over 100 recorded clips where the last thing I want to worry about is warp modes in these clips.

The problem is I HAVE TO change tempo sometimes in order to record various parts of a project at different tempo (piano), but of course I do not use warp mode for the recorded clips since I want to maintain pristine quality of the originally recorded sound. Once I change tempo, like you said, my warped consolidated clips will bring audible artifacts to originally recorded piano or field recording samples. OK, I can select all clips in the arrangement at some point and turn warp mode off for all of them, but having to remember doing it at some point is a no go....

I wish I could just disable auto-warping for the whole project. People work differently, long john. Consider paying some respect to other ways of working.

Andrejs

you can syncronise the project tempo in session view by typing in the BPM in the name of a scene and it will automatically change tempo when that scene is triggered (and make sure "record on launch" is ticked when you right click on the scene then you can record the part at the new tempo so that there won't be any artifacts as the tempo will match the clips and the clip will not be time stretched

but yes in arrange view it is currently quite frustrating when working with tempo - it's very hard to get exact tempo changes

[siliconarc]

for that kind of work i'd seriously recommend looking elsewhere than Live.

non-linear arranging in Live can be a real pain in the arse, as i've been discovering the last few weeks whilst working on a new tempo-free mix for a client. he started the project in L8 already, and wanted to continue working in it at my place. i've used cubase for years for this type of work, but rather than sway him to moving the project over to cubase, i thought i'd see how Live copes, and if there are any benefits. for me at least, there have been none.

the poor automation and the clunky 'fades' integration, the lack of clip grouping, not being able to select clips from different tracks without selecting every other clip inbetween, etc etc. not good, and pretty infuriating. stuff i never usually encounter in Live because of the workflow i usually have with it.

no disrespect to Live - i'm a massive fan and it's great at what it does, but it's not really a tool for non-linear audio editing/recording.

[locojohn]

you can syncronise the project tempo in session view by typing in the BPM in the name of a scene and it will automatically change tempo when that scene is triggered (and make sure "record on launch" is ticked when you right click on the scene then you can record the part at the new tempo so that there won't be any artifacts as the tempo will match the clips and the clip will not be time stretched

Thanks, Alex! Unfortunately in this project I am working on it is more convenient to record directly in the arrangement view, because I can quickly re-record only certain parts when I need. Otherwise, an extra operation would be necessary to drag the recorded clips from the session view to the arrangement view, exactly to the place where I need them.... Recording in the arrangement view has some benefits for me in this project.

Andrejs

[locojohn]

for that kind of work i'd seriously recommend looking elsewhere than Live.

non-linear arranging in Live can be a real pain in the arse, as i've been discovering the last few weeks whilst working on a new tempo-free mix for a client. he started the project in L8 already, and wanted to continue working in it at my place. i've used cubase for years for this type of work, but rather than sway him to moving the project over to cubase, i thought i'd see how Live copes, and if there are any benefits. for me at least, there have been none.

the poor automation and the clunky 'fades' integration, the lack of clip grouping, not being able to select clips from different tracks without selecting every other clip inbetween, etc etc. not good, and pretty infuriating. stuff i never usually encounter in Live because of the workflow i usually have with it.

no disrespect to Live - i'm a massive fan and it's great at what it does, but it's not really a tool for non-linear audio editing/recording.

Garyboozy, I tend to agree to 100% of what you said. But at the current state of things I cannot afford buying Logic/Cubase/Sonar and investing my time into the learning process. I will have to finish this project in Live.

Perhaps, Live 9 will introduce non-linear editing features in the arrangement view, in addition to improvements for some existing features like fades. Fades in Live are disappointing because, unlike other automation envelopes, you cannot set additional "points" on a fade curve and thereby change the fade envelope the way you like.

Andrejs

[longjohns]

actually i don't use the session view at all

[longjohns]

The problem is I HAVE TO change tempo sometimes in order to record various parts of a project at different tempo (piano), but of course I do not use warp mode for the recorded clips since I want to maintain pristine quality of the originally recorded sound.

you don't HAVE TO do anything. for the music you are describing, i am wondering why are concerned about the Live tempo at all. who cares what tempo live thinks it is playing at?

as you say, if you're not doing loop based music, the "tempo" is irrelevant

this is for example how I do mixes in the arrange. nothing at all lines up to the grid. when I automate the tempo occasionally, during a blend from song to song, it has nothing to do with what tempo either of the two songs is... it's just a way to get the audio to stretch so that the 2 waveforms line up.

so, in your case, if you leave the set tempo at 120 (or 65, or 999, or whatever) then you can record something which is at 47 bpm, something at 164 bpm, something at 218.3 bpm... and they will all remain "pristine" so long as you always leave that main tempo alone (or turn it back to 120 if you had changed it temporarily)

btw consolidate normalizes the samples.

[locojohn]

so, in your case, if you leave the set tempo at 120 (or 65, or 999, or whatever) then you can record something which is at 47 bpm, something at 164 bpm, something at 218.3 bpm... and they will all remain "pristine" so long as you always leave that main tempo alone (or turn it back to 120 if you had changed it temporarily)

How can I record an external piano instrument at 47 bpm using the Live metronome while project tempo is set to 120?

btw consolidate normalizes the samples.

Doesn't the normalization only occur if the peaks in the samples exceed 0 dBFS?

Andrejs

[Cryptic UK]

Death to the warp. Should be such a little part of Live, not something that takes over the whole program. It's a fucking disease.

[longjohns]

How can I record an external piano instrument at 47 bpm using the Live metronome while project tempo is set to 120?

well, if you lock yourself into using the live metronome, you can't. if you make a metronome clip at 47 bpm, then you can listen to that. or, you can use a real metronome. or, you can not use a metronome. i was under the impression that we were talking about "improvised recording that is absolutely not in sync with the project's tempo and it should not be"

Doesn't the normalization only occur if the peaks in the samples exceed 0 dBFS?

no. it normalizes the sample, for technical reasons which i'm not expert enough to explain fully. i'm pretty sure that it has to do with the fact that a consolidation will usually involve a bitrate change, and preserving fidelity across this change. there have been some abe posts explaining this, which might be found through a search. or it might explain it in the fact sheet. the playback volume will remain as it was, because it automatically adjusts the clip gain to compensate for the normalization. I brought it up because I thought you'd want to be aware of it. Some people don't like to normalize

[longjohns]

basically what i was saying before is that if you are not using loops, then the arrangement view is a glorified reel-to-reel tape deck. the set tempo is the tape speed.

if you were recording on a tape deck, you would not have to adjust the tape speed based on what you were recording. but you could adjust it if you wanted to do something weird.

with live you get a lot more than 3 tape speeds, and you can do a lot weirder stuff

[locojohn]

well, if you lock yourself into using the live metronome, you can't. if you make a metronome clip at 47 bpm, then you can listen to that. or, you can use a real metronome. or, you can not use a metronome. i was under the impression that we were talking about "improvised recording that is absolutely not in sync with the project's tempo and it should not be"

Look, I have a studio room and I have mic and headphone cables leading into a recording room with grand piano. Of course I'd like to hear the rest of the mix while playing and recording the instrument so I am using headphones. Of course the Ableton internal metronome is then the only option I can use to sync to the tempo I've chosen for the piano part.

Doesn't the normalization only occur if the peaks in the samples exceed 0 dBFS?

no. it normalizes the sample, for technical reasons which i'm not expert enough to explain fully. i'm pretty sure that it has to do with the fact that a consolidation will usually involve a bitrate change, and preserving fidelity across this change.

In my project all samples have identical sample rate and bit depth (96/24). I am not sure where does your assumption come from that consolidation would usually involve a bitrate change? When I am satisfied with the recording of an instrument, I use "Consolidate" and then "Manage Project" function in Live to eventually get rid of unused recorded samples. I hope it makes sense, as I work at higher sample rate/bit depth in my projects leading to having a lot of samples which consume plenty of disk space.

So consolidation helps me to free up some HDD space and reduce number of clips involved in the arrangement. I am now a bit worried that the "Consolidate" function, by using normalization still affects the quality of the consolidated samples even if:

1) merged parts are all of the same bit depth and sample rate
2) merged parts peak at negative numbers (far less than 0 dBFS)

Why would there be any reason to normalize if both conditions are met?

Anyway, thanks for the response.

Andrejs

[longjohns]

i don't agree that the live metronome is your only option, but i think i've said enough here and i'm not going to keep trying to change your mind

re: consolidation / normalization: i will have to try to search for the explanation. that technical stuff is not my thing. i know i was confused vs. the freeze command. freeze always generates 32 bit files regardless of preference settings (to match internal processing resolution)

but indeed, after double-checking, consolidate generates files according to the preference settings.

[longjohns]

30.3.7 Consolidate

Consolidating clips in the Arrangement View creates new audio files, which are non-neutral in comparison to the original audio data. Specifically, the new files will be normalized, with their clip volumes adjusted to play back at the same volume as heard prior to consolidation. Normalization is a gain change, which is a non-neutral operation. Also, the new files will be created at the sample rate and bit depth set in Live’s Preferences window, which may differ from those in the original audio files.

somewhere on the forum, i swear, there was an explanation as to why...

[longjohns]

this is the best i've found so far:

But:

The internal processing is done with 32 or 64 bit. The soundfile has 16 or 24 bit. If you have a sound file and you put the fader almost all the way down the file internally still has a good resolution, but if you record/render it with 16bit you will maybe end up using ony 12 bit and this is definitly audible. Also internally there is no upper limit for headroom ( well _almost_ no limit), but if you record/render a file with +6dB peak you will get ugly clipping.

Normalise:

If normalise is turned on, Live does two passes: In the first pass it runs thru the whole file and is looking for the maximum peak. If this is -6.32 dB, then it stores this value.
In a second step it raises the master volume slider internally by 6.32dB before rendering. Now you will get a file where the maximum is at 0.0dB.
After the rendering, the Master Volume is restetted to it`s previous value.

Consolidate does the same trick and this is why the clip volume slider ist allways at -xxx after consolidate.
This ensures that the consolidated file has the best possible resolution on disk.

Hope this helps a bit.

Robert

in my non-expert interpretation, it means that the reason for normalization during consolidation is so that in a quiet recording (or a recording with the fader turned waaay down??), the maximum # of bits are used to their fullest advantage.

?

and at the risk of talking out my 4$$, there IS a bit-rate change involved in this operation, in that the playback of your 24-bit files is being done at 32-bit float as it is processed through the live mixer, and then saved again as a 24-bit file.

double ??

given your concerns in this direction, it might be worth exploring if there is another way to achieve what you're after, without the consolidate function. maybe you could explain a bit more about your workflow..

it is possible that the crop command might be more neutral. if you were talking about a section with multiple punch points, it could consist of many clips with lengths greater than the eventual composite. by cropping each clip section, maybe you can get rid of the "waste" without the consolidation/normalization worries?