Auditioning slices (playing audio between two warp markers)?

[zeitgeist]

Is there a way to listen to a section of a clip between two warp markers (like auditioning slices in Recycle)? I know I can set the start/end points for the clip in line with the warp markers, but I can't seem to set the full clip length to be shorter than 1/16, and a lot of my potential slices are shorter than this.

I'm trying to slice vocals into very small pieces (phonemes), so I'm not slicing on clearly defined transients. I'd like to use Slice to MIDI (based on warp markers), but it's really tough to get the warp markers in the right place, and it's a pain to position markers, slice it, then go back and review to see if I got the start/end points right.

I know I can adjust the start/end points in Simpler/Sampler after slicing, but I'd like to preserve the right rhythm in the MIDI, which gets lost if I change the sample start/end after slicing.

From all my searching, I don't think this is exactly possible (there was this very hostile thread on this same issue: http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=114910). But does anyone have any good workarounds? Or do you all just do your slicing outside of Live when you need good precision? I'd prefer to do it in Live, because I'm much faster in it.

[zeitgeist]

Bump. Any ideas or workarounds?

[dna598]

Ahh, good to see this brought up again.

Unfortunately the answer is no, there are no work arounds. Its just a massive oversight.

[glenn303]

Did you try highlighting selection and click loop?

[dna598]

Did you try highlighting selection and click loop?

wrong answer

[dum]

Its just a huge, enormous, massive festering sore of an oversight.

fixed.

This was highlighted as far back as the beta phase of Live7, but fanboys either argued against the criticism or just plain couldn't grasp what the problem was.

So am I to believe this enormous oversight still isn't addressed in Live8 ?

Fanboys: lowering standards since 2001

[pepezabala]

I agree. auditioning slices before slicing would be great, specially when building drumracks out of strange audio.

[dna598]

This was highlighted as far back as the beta phase of Live7, but fanboys argued against the criticism AND just plain couldn't grasp what the problem was.

Fixed!I see that Tonedeft, Poster and a few others have gone VERY quiet.

To answer your question Dum, yes this basic feature available to samplists since the 1990's is not here in "the best daw in the world".

Getting noobs to beta test is not a very good idea is it Ableton?

[zeitgeist]

Thanks for the update on this. I'm in total agreement with you guys in that old thread I linked, and I can't figure out why this isn't more important to (or even understood by) more people.

It should be even more important in Live 8, with the addition of the groove engine--if you can't properly place warp markers or get the right timing from sliced MIDI, the groove engine is useless!

I haven't made any sample-based music in years, but I got that itch again, and it's disappointing that Live isn't quite there yet. More disappointing is the fact that I thought I could lay off on Live upgrades for a few years, because for all my other music it's feature-complete enough for my needs. But this oversight is a killer for sample-based music!

Time to see if I can get my 10-year-old copy of Recycle to install on my current machine...

[The Carpet Cleaner]

Now that got one myself, I can finely scream like all the other assholes ( ) on this forum for the past few months :
MASCHINE !
Ha, it's so good to follow the hype :p

[siliconarc]

there's some sort of auditioning of transient markers already there, but it's poorly implemented at the moment.

it only works in Arrange, and you have to set the focus to the clip edit first, but then you can alt-left/right to move the playhead around the transients, and use alt-space to trigger from there.

works pretty well until you make a transient into a warp marker using CMD-I, then alt-arrow keys stop working until you click in the clip again. flow killer. wouldnt take too much to get a proper working feature.

[zeitgeist]

there's some sort of auditioning of transient markers already there, but it's poorly implemented at the moment.

it only works in Arrange, and you have to set the focus to the clip edit first, but then you can alt-left/right to move the playhead around the transients, and use alt-space to trigger from there.

works pretty well until you make a transient into a warp marker using CMD-I, then alt-arrow keys stop working until you click in the clip again. flow killer. wouldnt take too much to get a proper working feature.

Thanks for this, Gary!!! This is really helpful and just what I was looking for!

Working in Arrange also means you can set the end marker anywhere, no matter how short it makes the clip (which you can't do in Session), so you can align it with any other warp marker and audition the start and end points of the clip. Just make sure you're using adaptive grid set wide enough so the end marker will snap to warp markers and transients--this makes it pretty fast to audition from one warp marker to the next.

Anyone else who's been asking for slice auditioning should give this a shot (note that on Windows you want Ctrl-left/right and Ctrl-space to play, not Alt, which is what you want on OS X). I've been playing with this for about 10 minutes, and copying the warped clip from Arrange back to Session when you're done is certainly faster than working in Recycle (and you can audition your slices with your effects chain in Live, which is a potentially annoying problem with Recycle).

(And I don't find the CMD-I issue to be a flow killer, at least in the way I work, because I'm usually placing warp markers manually on material without detectable transients, so I have to click anyway.)

[dna598]

there's some sort of auditioning of transient markers already there, but it's poorly implemented at the moment.

it only works in Arrange, and you have to set the focus to the clip edit first, but then you can alt-left/right to move the playhead around the transients, and use alt-space to trigger from there.

works pretty well until you make a transient into a warp marker using CMD-I, then alt-arrow keys stop working until you click in the clip again. flow killer. wouldnt take too much to get a proper working feature.

Well done for helping the op, but as there is no way for it to stop playing at the next transient marker, it is pretty useless isnt it.... But thats not your fault ofcourse!

Simple modifier key could do it.

I wish I knew why we are waiting so long for this.(dont wanna hear about bugs)

[siliconarc]

Well done for helping the op...

err...

but as there is no way for it to stop playing at the next transient marker, it is pretty useless isnt it....

hold shift while alt-arrow'ing to select the area between transients.
far from ideal, though. unfinished feature.

[zeitgeist]

Well done for helping the op, but as there is no way for it to stop playing at the next transient marker, it is pretty useless isnt it.... But thats not your fault ofcourse!

Simple modifier key could do it.

I wish I knew why we are waiting so long for this.(dont wanna hear about bugs)

But you CAN get it to stop at the next transient: In Arrange you can place the end marker anywhere in the clip (no matter how short). If you set the grid to adaptive (and somewhat wide), the end marker will snap to both warp markers *and* transients, which means that this does allow you start and stop playback between two arbitrary transients (or warp markers). Yes, you do have to move the end marker around, but if you're moving a transient or warp marker anyway, it doesn't really disrupt the workflow.

This also has one advantage over Recycle or other programs: if you have the endpoint all set but are still tweaking the start point, you can drop in a bunch of different warp markers as potential start points. Then, using Alt-left/right and Alt-space, you can easily jump back and forth between a bunch of different start points and audition each one for quick comparison. An MPC is still faster for adjusting start points, but this part is better than any other software implementation I've used.

(I don't mean to pretend that this solves things, because this should already be a built-in feature that works in Session as well, and you shouldn't have to move the end marker manually. But this is a really solid workaround, and after using it for a little while I'm basically as fast as doing it in Recycle.)