Slicing to Drum Racks

Share your favorite Ableton Live tips, tricks, and techniques.
Post Reply
Nikolai
Posts: 12
Joined: Mon May 26, 2008 10:38 am

Slicing to Drum Racks

Post by Nikolai » Sat Aug 23, 2008 8:57 pm

Hi all,

I like to take old raw breakbeats and use them in drum and bass. I cut them up using warp markers and slice to new midi track. The thing is, I don't like that Ableton time stretches the audio file to fit the warp markers. Its a great function but I like the rawness of the break and want to keep it as it is. When its stretched some of the essence of the break is lost. Without having to go through recycle, is there a way I can just set markers on the audio file and then have it slice to the drum rack from that without any stretching?

Cheers

Trypset
Posts: 868
Joined: Mon Jan 21, 2008 2:14 pm
Location: Horticulture Dept., Texas A&M

Post by Trypset » Sat Aug 23, 2008 10:25 pm

find close to the original tempo....set your markers where you want......slice to drum rack (there is an option to do the slices where you placed the markers yourself.
TrypseT
Live 8 Full (not suite), ES-1 MKII, Microkorg, MPC 1000, 2 1200's, Ms. Pinky's, OSX, Edirol FA-101, and a crate 'o' wax

hoffman2k
Posts: 14718
Joined: Tue Jun 15, 2004 6:40 pm
Location: Belgium
Contact:

Re: Slicing to Drum Racks

Post by hoffman2k » Sat Aug 23, 2008 10:43 pm

Nikolai wrote:Hi all,

I like to take old raw breakbeats and use them in drum and bass. I cut them up using warp markers and slice to new midi track. The thing is, I don't like that Ableton time stretches the audio file to fit the warp markers. Its a great function but I like the rawness of the break and want to keep it as it is. When its stretched some of the essence of the break is lost. Without having to go through recycle, is there a way I can just set markers on the audio file and then have it slice to the drum rack from that without any stretching?

Cheers
You have to endure the stretching while setting up the markers, but its impossible to stretch files in a Simpler or Sampler. So your sliced file should sound the way you want.

Nikolai
Posts: 12
Joined: Mon May 26, 2008 10:38 am

Post by Nikolai » Sun Aug 24, 2008 12:27 am

thanks for replies.

Can you just clear something up for me. When I start setting the warp markers ableton begins its famous time stretching process and like you said I have to endure it. Then you select the slice to midi track option and it brings it all up in drum rack with its individual simpler for each sliced hit. But the slice section has already been affected hasnt it? It will already have been processed so surely it wont sound the same?

Sorry if I'm being stupid, thanks for taking the time to explain to people of lower intelligence like me.

Edit: Ok I tried it out and it works, I think I was under the impression the warping was resampled when placed into the different simplers. thanks

chapelier fou
Posts: 6355
Joined: Mon May 15, 2006 12:15 pm

Post by chapelier fou » Sun Aug 24, 2008 9:48 am

Trypset wrote: (there is an option to do the slices where you placed the markers yourself.
Thanks a lot for that! I always thought this slicing tool was a techno toy!
MacBook Pro 13" Retina i7 2.8 GHz OS 10.13, L10.0.1, M4L.
MacStudio M1Max 32Go OS 12.3.1

hoffman2k
Posts: 14718
Joined: Tue Jun 15, 2004 6:40 pm
Location: Belgium
Contact:

Post by hoffman2k » Sun Aug 24, 2008 12:06 pm

Nikolai wrote:thanks for replies.

Can you just clear something up for me. When I start setting the warp markers ableton begins its famous time stretching process and like you said I have to endure it. Then you select the slice to midi track option and it brings it all up in drum rack with its individual simpler for each sliced hit. But the slice section has already been affected hasnt it? It will already have been processed so surely it wont sound the same?

Sorry if I'm being stupid, thanks for taking the time to explain to people of lower intelligence like me.

Edit: Ok I tried it out and it works, I think I was under the impression the warping was resampled when placed into the different simplers. thanks
Its the same sample. One of Live's features called "non-destructive editing".
The sample gets sliced and diced, but only virtually.

Trypset
Posts: 868
Joined: Mon Jan 21, 2008 2:14 pm
Location: Horticulture Dept., Texas A&M

Post by Trypset » Sun Aug 24, 2008 8:03 pm

Thanks a lot for that! I always thought this slicing tool was a techno toy!
no problem...thats the only way to use it in my opinion
TrypseT
Live 8 Full (not suite), ES-1 MKII, Microkorg, MPC 1000, 2 1200's, Ms. Pinky's, OSX, Edirol FA-101, and a crate 'o' wax

glamourboy
Posts: 253
Joined: Thu Jul 26, 2007 11:57 am
Location: Copenhagen

Post by glamourboy » Mon Aug 25, 2008 5:02 pm

the slicing ability is amazing. i often chop my tracks just to be able to midi-mangle, usually with arpeggiator.

Lephrenic
Posts: 56
Joined: Mon Oct 01, 2007 4:54 am
Location: North Melbourne, Australia

Post by Lephrenic » Tue Aug 26, 2008 2:31 pm

Nikolai wrote:Can you just clear something up for me. When I start setting the warp markers ableton begins its famous time stretching process and like you said I have to endure it. Then you select the slice to midi track option and it brings it all up in drum rack with its individual simpler for each sliced hit. But the slice section has already been affected hasnt it? It will already have been processed so surely it wont sound the same?
The short answer is NO. :D The slices sent to the Drum Rack are NOT WARPED, despite the warping that goes on while you're setting markers before slicing.

I was worried about this as well at first, so I was very pleased to discover the slices aren't warped. It makes the most sense, after all.
MacBook Pro 2.2GHz, OSX 10.6.6
Presonus Firebox, APC40
Ableton Suite 9

chapelier fou
Posts: 6355
Joined: Mon May 15, 2006 12:15 pm

Post by chapelier fou » Tue Aug 26, 2008 3:10 pm

you could resample the warped sound.
MacBook Pro 13" Retina i7 2.8 GHz OS 10.13, L10.0.1, M4L.
MacStudio M1Max 32Go OS 12.3.1

Post Reply