using re-pitch warp for full track/DJ style mixes

[forge]

I've been toying around with doing a mix using full rendered tracks to mix DJ style (after a couple of years of using live almost exclusively for production) and it seems to have only just occurred to me that the best way to warp them for this purpose might be "re-pitch" because that's basically the same as speeding up or slowing down vinyl only digital

more importantly there's no warping because it would only be playing back at lower or higher sample rate - so no quality loss, complex is much better than beats or tones for full tracks, but really the only time I'd really want any of those is if I were taking a small clip from it and using sample offset/transport etc etc in which case I'd just create a seperate clip, or if I wanted to speed something up drastically without making it chipmunk whichis not hugely likely

anyone else agree/disagree/use it this way or think of a reason I've missed to use complex?

[serotoninsteve]

Usually I use beats mode, there is not a big difference between beats and repitch when played back at approx the original BPM.
Repitch is the one with the less or none timestretch artefacts indeed, complex is only usefull if you drastically change the tempo, even when played back at its orig speed it does sound less punchier and slighly synthesized over the whole soundspectrum. It gets even worser if you play mp3´s wich already always have these shitty thin mp3 highs.
So a big yes for beats and repitch, tones or texture are nice if you want to play with the settings for sounddesign but never really used them for mixing.

Greetings

[ben_blue]

for me repitch is a no-go, becuase i lose one thing that is such a great thing to be able to do, and that is key matching everything.

thats my thing, with Live and warping, i see it as being able to jump up a level higher than beat matching and onto a new plane of key matching.


when i find myself missing "feeling liek a dj," i just spin on some cdj's, and that usually cures the itch.

you can do them together, too...

[ethios4]

I've never spun vinyl, so I 've never understood how dinyl DJ's are able to key match tracks. The only way I could see it being done is to beatmatch two records that are the exact same tempo, and the same key or a related key. That seems way too limiting, but its the only way I could ever figure out that it was done.

So how do they do it?

[amo]

I've never spun vinyl, so I 've never understood how dinyl DJ's are able to key match tracks. The only way I could see it being done is to beatmatch two records that are the exact same tempo, and the same key or a related key. That seems way too limiting, but its the only way I could ever figure out that it was done.

So how do they do it?

They don't and for years it's not been a problem not to key match, though it is quite a problem is the music style is very melodic, like goa trance... A DJ has to use tricks, and cannot mix any track to any other one... It takes some work.

[ben_blue]

well before cdj's, if a dj said he keymatched, it meant he would search for records whose keys went well together. or if he started to cue one that sounded awful, or an ovbious mismatch, he just wouldnt play that one then.

[dm_hawk]

Yeah, when I mixed vinyl, I would sometimes play all my records at the same tempo and mark which key they were in on the sleeve or label. This was tedious, but less so than warping, and it made the mixes smoother.

In Live, I often have to use repitch on any track that has a rich bassline or kick, cause the other modes can really fuck up the lower frequencies. Complex mode can take a toll on the highs.

[forge]

but also, particularly for techno sometimes it sounds better or tighter to be sped and pitched up a little - one of the main differences between a DJ mix and a warped mix - the actual pitching of a record changes the sound of it and this has been present in Dance music from the start, so while being maybe more musically correct to have it all properly warped sometimes that can be too musical for the likes of techno. Especially if you're using a track that's around 133 and you're bringing it in to a 140 mix - the pitching will significantly affect the sound, often for the better, not always

[mjmedik]

I almost exclusively use 're-pitch.' I feel that the beats mode, while great for smaller loops, makes whole tracks a bit muddy if you stray more than 3 or 4 bpm from the native tempo. The 'complex' option in Live 5 takes away some of that muddiness, but vocals still sound a little different than they should. I sort all of my tracks by their respective key and I also rename all of my files in this form: "[bpm]-Artist-Title" after I warp the files in Live. The key usually holds true for about +/- 3 bpm (ie you can play a 127 bpm track with either a 130bpm track or 124 bpm track in the same key and the key will still hold true.....so keeping that in mind I can play a 124 bpm track in the key of E with a 130 bpm track in the key of F and they will match.....but you can definitely get cought up and TOO focused on playing by key and really loose a feel for the music.

[forge]

cool..I was actually about to add a reply to this thread because last night i was dong some mixing using complex mode - so I've come to the conclusion that there definitely is no hard and fast rule that it depends entirely on what you're playing and how you want it played - but I'm glad a started thinking of re-pitch as my other choice - because I agree beats doesnt cut it for tracks but for some reason it never occurred to me for ages to try re-pitch

[forge]

On my new found mission I've started trying drum loops with re-pitch

It's like I'd forgotten all those years of using a sampler and having to manually tune the loops to the tempo changed the pitch, and now I've been using live these last few years I've got used to the warped way but now I'm remembering that sometime using a 128 house loop sped up to 138 for techno and having the pitch change is actually a really good sound - it gives it punchyness

even on my own recorded uTonic loops

[ben_blue]

ah yes the days of my mpc2000 and SP-808.

[olafmol]

i think re-pitch is much better for DJ-sets using live, who wants to listen to a DJ-set which is 120BPM the entire evening, with all swing and shuffle removed from the original audio?

Olaf

[starving student]

i hope the live 5 power book covers this in depth, good thread forge.

[subterFUSE]

I use repitch for everything, except for tracks that are much slower/faster than my typical BPM range... (ie 123-130)

Repitch = most accurate warping, fewest artifacts... and least CPU %

Complex is nice when repitch mode makes the track sound funny, because you pitch it up so much the vocals sound like Chipmunks.