Complex Mode = degraded sound quality

massiveheadpain · Post by **massiveheadpain** » Thu Aug 31, 2006 8:09 pm

I know this has been discussed many times and I know your answer is to use repitch but for what I do repitch is NOT an option.
For those of you who don't know, using complex warp mode adds nasty artifacts to any audio it uses. It is particularly bad on basslines. Use a pro pair of studio monitors or high end headphones and you will hear exactly what I am talking about.
I know that when Im djing out in the club the average joe blow isnt gonna notice or give two shits. But it bugs the crap out of me!! And for my production stuff this is seriously bad!
I want everyone who who agrees that Ableton's timestretching algorithms need an overhaul to post here to bring it to their attention.
Other than that little thing I love Ableton and keep up the great work!

TB

vanhaze · Post by **vanhaze** » Thu Aug 31, 2006 8:21 pm

totally with you.

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Thu Aug 31, 2006 8:25 pm

I think it depends on the source material, some tunes sound fine with it, others suffer pretty obvious degradation.

massiveheadpain · Post by **massiveheadpain** » Thu Aug 31, 2006 8:37 pm

I noticed for really chunky electro type songs that the bass sounds messed up.

difference · Post by **difference** » Sun Sep 03, 2006 9:58 am

There is no perfect time stretching algorithm. Abelton's are pretty good imo - and there are a few to choose from. Have you tried playing with the paramters on the tones and textures modes? Beats mode can work OK on some basslines too if it's a more "stacatto" kind of part. The other option is to slice manually and resequence obviously.

Sometimes it's worth a bit of preperation with this kind of thing. Some eq and compression can help to mask the artifacts brought about by the timestretch. If you are playing a track and a big difference to its original tempo, there's no way of avoiding some pretty obvious degredation though. For DJing, maybe try a bit of tempo automation to bring the temp of your set closer to the original speed of the track you're about to drop.

Of course, if you want the bees knees in timestretching and pitch shifting, you should shell out for Melodyne.

Pitch Black · Post by **Pitch Black** » Sun Sep 03, 2006 10:19 am

Try this if you're really in a jam: use different warp modes for the top and bottom end.

http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17350

Hope this helps,

paddy

the_Alien · Post by **the_Alien** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 2:29 am

Same here!

In my opinion the sound quality is the major part that needs immediate surgery. I did extensive research in the internet as I thought I must have some hardware problems, often hear "thin" sounds while using Live. Result of research: I am not the only one.

But I love this app coz it changed my way of working with its UI and I could not find any substitute in the last 2 years (and I tried out any f**king app found on this planet

).

longjohns · Post by **longjohns** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 2:34 am

maybe what is needed is a super-high-quality offline warp command, which would generate a new audio track at the new tempo

the_Alien · Post by **the_Alien** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 3:05 am

when it comes to offline work there are tons of superb plugins out there squeezing your audio file into all known and unknown dimensions. IMHO, this is the building block of Live. Removing it renders it useless (and I can uninstall it and get back to my Protools)

Nope, sir.

What it really is amazing and of a true help is the ability of being so flexible like having a set of turntables instead of audio recordings. This clip/scene session jaming is the main creative process of my work.

forge · Post by **forge** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 5:39 am

dont know if this helps, but I've noticed that if you use complex on a sample that is the same tempo (like rendering a file in a project then warping it) you will get some shitty phasing going on, but if you change the tempo by one or 2 bpm it's ok

having sad that, my missus has been using Live to change the key of some of her backing tracks (she's a singer) and recently she did a Nora Jones one, pitched it down and it sounded rubbish - so I tried using waves ultra pitch shift and it sounded fantastic by comparison

so obviously there is a trade off between real time and higest quality - because that waves ultra pitch is awesome

blinkmuffel · Post by **blinkmuffel** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 6:38 am

[quote="forge"]dont know if this helps, but I've noticed that if you use complex on a sample that is the same tempo (like rendering a file in a project then warping it) you will get some shitty phasing going on, but if you change the tempo by one or 2 bpm it's ok[/quote]
Yes, this is very strange.

I tested a lot, and found out, that this seems to be only a problem on Windows machines. On Macs everything sounds good. (I don't know if it sounds good on IntelMacs).