Turning off warp to improve sound quality?

[woodwardjnr]

Now I've seen a few people mentioning that you can improve the quality of your recordings by removing the warping. if this is the case how do you keep your tracks timestrtetched and warped??? Or am I totally missing the point?

[jesQuick]

Now I've seen a few people mentioning that you can improve the quality of your recordings by removing the warping. if this is the case how do you keep your tracks timestrtetched and warped??? Or am I totally missing the point?

Well, you cant... Not without warp on... If you dont need timestretching etc. turn warp off for improved sound quality.

[robbmasters]

Or use Repitch...

[udp]

Each of the different warp styles has parameters that need tweaking to best employ these tools. Once you're satisfied with the sound, IF you want to turn off warping (I don't) you'll need to render that track to disk by soloing it and using File/Render to Disk. It is my feeling that people who don't like the sound of streched audio either haven't played with the setting enough or need to not use warped audio 'cause they don't like that sound.

[woodwardjnr]

I record my beats in from reason, when they dont hit the line exactly I warp them to hit each beat at the very begining of the wave, if i didnt do this all my beats would go out of time

[Patch]

If you don't like having warp turned on - why not warp your tracks, and then render each one to disk? If they're all warped correctly, and you render them to disk at the same tempo, you will still be able to play all your tracks in time with each other with having warp switched on...

(I think hambone1 does/did this...)

[compositeone]

If you don't like having warp turned on - why not warp your tracks, and then render each one to disk? If they're all warped correctly, and you render them to disk at the same tempo, you will still be able to play all your tracks in time with each other with having warp switched on...

(I think hambone1 does/did this...)

I don't see why that will effect sound quality. If you have just rendered a warped sound then any loss of quality that happened in the warp will just be rendered.

Its like saying that turning an mp3 into a wav will improve the quality....

[Patch]

I've not tried it - but I do remember reading it here a while back. I think the idea is that less strain is put on the cpu by not applying any warp algorithms during playback.

[compositeone]

CPU load I can understand. The less there is for it to do during play back the better, it must be just like freezing.

[pulsoc]

I've not tried it - but I do remember reading it here a while back. I think the idea is that less strain is put on the cpu by not applying any warp algorithms during playback.

This is true if the issue is cpu performance. But the real question everyone has been arguing about has been whether having warp on affects sound quality even if the global bpm is the same as the clip/song bpm. I believe concensus was yes, warp does affect the sound quality.

[Cryptic UK]

Here we go.

http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic. ... sc&start=0

[dj superflat]

no, the consensus was that warp does not affect sound quality or have any effect at the same tempo and in repitch mode (likely beats as well; by contrast, complex mode obviously affects sound even at same tempo). so you can keep warp on, use looping, and it won't affect audio so long as tempo remains constant.

[dj superflat]

sorry, backwards -- beats mode is one to use, repitch often works too.

[Angstrom]

the bottom line is ... if you have a piece of audio and time stretch it in any application (using any algo) - there will be artifacts.

If you use Cubase / Fruity / Logic / etc ... and decide to time stretch a wave so it fits to project tempo you will get artifacts. You may prefer one artifact sound over another but thats up to you, the fact remains that comparing an unstretched Cubase guitar recording to a timestretched one in Live is not a comparison of like items. In fact its a bit stupid in my opinion.

But, regarding 'tunring warp off' you can have warp on WITHOUT artifacts if the audio is at the same tempo as the song. So, if you record a wave at some bpm, then play it back at that same bpm the warp may be active, but won't alter sound quality, thats the official line from Ableton. Cant find the quote right now.

EG:
start live at some BPM, sing into a track, play it back at the SAME BPM using either beats or repitch and there should be no artifacts.

Essentially this is exactly the same as Cubase / Logic / blah blah performs. If you just record a guitar at 118.9 bpm then play it back at 118.9 bpm it will sound the same, it will not be warped.

when artifacts do appear:

if you change the tempo of live so that your 118.9 bpm wave is now played at a faster or slower speed the warp engine is engaged in granulating the audio.

IMPORTANT : If you use 'complex' there will always be artifacts even without bpm shifts because of the way it works, its a frequency windowing algo without time cues. Beats is time windowing and takes time cues from the song pos (obviously!)

--

rendering the warp might alleviate some CPU strain but it will simply commit any artifacts to a wave, not remove or reduce them.


I dont really encounter artefacts too much, most of my audio is things I have recorded into the track at the same bpm (soft synths / guitar / bass / etc) or failing that, it is drum machine stuff that I then flatten to a wave to mess about with it. Either way - no artifacts until I want them!

[STRATEGY_510]

Once you're satisfied with the sound, IF you want to turn off warping (I don't) you'll need to render that track to disk by soloing it and using File/Render to Disk.

What would be the advantage to this? Seems like you'd be effectively hard-wiring the warp mode into the track by rendering with the warping on..

Me? I swear by re-pitch 90% of the time and use complex mode when the tempo disparity between the original and my intended use is drastic enough to warrant it.


STRATEGY