Set Different Tempos to Individual Software Instruments?

Phree · Post by **Phree** » Thu May 12, 2005 4:43 pm

I'm experimenting with the Live 4 demo on Mac OS X Panther....

I'm hoping that Live will be all that I need to produce music and I will be using mostly software instruments as "audio tracks" to create songs

Is it possible to set different tempos to individual software instruments and if so, where do I set this?

To try this, I simply loaded up two software instruments into two different audio tracks and played them. They seemed to be on different tempos. I see where each one has a different tempo (Orig BPM) shown on the WARP tab.

What's confusing me is that when I want to slow down the tempo, I have to "increase" the Orig BPM number instead of decrease. The same goes for when I want to speed up the tempo, I have to "decrease" the Orig BPM.

This doesn't seem to be how this should work. So I thought to ask everyone here perhaps if I'm doing this correctly or again, is it even possible???

Thanks!

defunkt · Post by **defunkt** » Thu May 12, 2005 5:01 pm

are you playing what you are recording.software instruments dont have a set tempo.

Phree · Post by **Phree** » Thu May 12, 2005 9:20 pm

Defunkt,

Thanks for the reply....

I'm not playing any physical instrument if that's what you're asking.

I'm just looping the software instruments (like a GarageBand Dance Beat & GarageBand Synth) using two Audio Tracks. I want to be able to, for example, set a dance beat to 125 BPM and set a synth beat to 90 BPM and have them play simultaneously in Live.

I see on the Audio Track Warp screens an Orig. BPM. When I change the BPMs per software instrument, I have to decrease the BPM to get the tempo to go faster and increase the BPM to get the tempo to go slower. That just isn't making sense why it works that way.

Therefore, I'm wondering if I'm using the wrong option in which to change the tempos of individual software instruments?

smutek · Post by **smutek** » Thu May 12, 2005 9:29 pm

The first thing that comes to my mind is that you should record the piece you want to play at 95 bpm as an audio clip in live.

Then turn warping off so that the audio track plays back unaffected by the master tempo and lives warp engine and play that against your master tempo of 124 or whatever it was.

Other than that I know of no way to run devices at different tempos within live. If you are running garageband maybe you can pump the audio into ableton but not sync the two? If you have one piece running at 90 and one at 125 sync should not matter very much should it?

Phree · Post by **Phree** » Thu May 12, 2005 9:50 pm

smutek,

I'll give your first suggestion a shot. I'm not actually doing anything in or with GarageBand, just using the Loops/software instruments that it came with in Live.

Anyone else have any ideas on this?

I appreciate all the help....

supster · Post by **supster** » Thu May 12, 2005 10:51 pm

Phree wrote: I'm just looping the software instruments (like a GarageBand Dance Beat & GarageBand Synth) using two Audio Tracks.

first of all, i dont understand this.

software instruments (live instruments, VSTs) dont run in Audio tracks. they run in MIDI tracks. so im losing you right off the bat

also: "running them at different tempos" is a misnomer, since - if the instrument has a sync to tempo option on an internal sequencer - it syncs to the master tempo or divisions of the master tempo.

software instruments are driven by MIDI clips, not audio clips. but you are talking about "warping" your clips .. and you dont "warp" midi clips

i think your not getting any answers because nobody knows what the hell you are doing

.

Phree · Post by **Phree** » Thu May 12, 2005 10:56 pm

supster wrote:software instruments (live instruments, VSTs) dont run in Audio tracks. they run in MIDI tracks. so im losing you right off the bat

Well, I've stated twice what the hell I'm doing.

I'm not using VSTs to my knowledge, so perhaps there's an issue with my terminology but maybe you can educate me on it since I'm the noob.

What I'm loading in the Live Audio Tracks are .AIFF files that are GarageBand loops, not VSTs, from what I know.

I'm not doing anything MIDI at this point.

Is that more clear Supster?

FaX-01 · Post by **FaX-01** » Thu May 12, 2005 11:24 pm

Once you warp the clip's so the all playing in sync you can do the following.
You will notice in the clip properties window two little rectangular boes with curved ends marked :2 and 2 .
You can set clips to divisors of the set tempo ie 50 bpm / 25bpm / 100 bpm and have them play in sync for example.
You can't technically have seperate tempo's simultaneously that aren't divisors or multipliers to the power of 2 however.
If you did it would sound like a proverbial train wreck.

Phree · Post by **Phree** » Thu May 12, 2005 11:41 pm

FaX-01 wrote:Once you warp the clip's so the all playing in sync you can do the following.
You will notice in the clip properties window two little rectangular boes with curved ends marked :2 and 2 .
You can set clips to divisors of the set tempo ie 50 bpm / 25bpm / 100 bpm and have them play in sync for example.
You can't technically have seperate tempo's simultaneously that aren't divisors or multipliers to the power of 2 however.
If you did it would sound like a proverbial train wreck.

Cool! Will give this a shot tonight!

Appreciate it....

supster · Post by **supster** » Thu May 12, 2005 11:42 pm

Phree wrote: I'm not using VSTs to my knowledge, so perhaps there's an issue with my terminology but maybe you can educate me on it since I'm the noob.

What I'm loading in the Live Audio Tracks are .AIFF files that are GarageBand loops, not VSTs, from what I know.

I'm not doing anything MIDI at this point.
Is that more clear Supster?

ya: you are using audio files in audio tracks. i think you confused the issue because external sofware instruments were used to create the audio files.

but from the perpective of live (or any other sequencer) wav and aiff files are simply audio files.

FAX-01 pretty much answered your question then. those "2" indicators in the warp panel will multiply/divide the speed of your clip against the master tempo

as far as adjusting the tempo being counterintuitive:

say a track was written at 100bpm. if the master tempo in Live is at 100bpm. and you set the Original BPM of the track at 200bpm ... what happens?

Live is playing the track back at half speed. you are telling the clip it is supposed to be playing at 200bpm (that it will sound "normal" at 200bpm), but the master tempo is playing it back at half that speed ... so it will slow down.
.

Phree · Post by **Phree** » Fri May 13, 2005 12:22 am

supster wrote:say a track was written at 100bpm. if the master tempo in Live is at 100bpm. and you set the Original BPM of the track at 200bpm ... what happens?

Live is playing the track back at half speed. you are telling the clip it is supposed to be playing at 200bpm (that it will sound "normal" at 200bpm), but the master tempo is playing it back at half that speed ... so it will slow down.
.

Got it! Makes sense and thanks to you both for breaking this down further.