Ableton Forum

@ Vorb

There seems to be a bit of miscommunication going on in this thread

Warping has to do with two things:

(1) Making sure that the track is synced to the beat (playing at the right BPM)
(2) Making sure that the beats fall exactly on time (lining up the beats accurately)

A track is properly warped if Live is able to play it exactly in time with the metronome for the duration of the whole song, no matter how fast the master tempo is set.

With the track unwarped, Live does not interfere in any of those things and plays the raw audio. It will be difficult to make sure that the beats of two different tracks match up at all. Great for ambient sets, a nightmare for dance music

With the track auto-warped, Live will get the BPM of the track right most of the time. It can also get it spectacularly wrong. And sometimes the timing will be out by a millisecond, causing a track to drift out of time. Again, play the track with the metronome on and you will hear.

And secondly, with the track auto -warped, Live may sometimes get the location of the beats wrong so that the tracks don't play precisely in sync even if they are at the same speed. The kick drum will be off the beat by 5 to 250 milliseconds. You will be able to tell this by zooming in on the wave form and seeing where the transient falls.

So if you want to play beat driven dance music, pre-warping the tracks, and checking that they are warped right, is essential.

Once you get the hang of it, it is easy and should not take you more than a minute or two per track

An excellent guide to pre-awarping your dance music is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOKPKkkgFqU

Hope that helps

N/m

way better off warping the tracks, Live discriminates against unwarped tracks- you lose the ability to do tons of commands on a track that is not warped.

4x4 tracks should take no longer than 10 seconds to warp properly.

Here is a quick approach on warping a full track.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsHnZUGl8yY

Michael Hatsis wrote: Live discriminates against unwarped tracks- you lose the ability to do tons of commands on a track that is not warped.

Yes, very weird. At the very least I want to be able to loop unwarped tracks...

Different question:

I'm doing my 4/4 beats with Push using its swing encoder, sometimes 2 different kicks with different swings at the same time (because that makes it groovy )
Can Live handle warping stuff like this, or would doing this would make it hell for DJs to mix my tracks?

And if it does, what would be solutions to this? Would 8 bar "adaptor" pieces which are "straight" in the beginning and end be sufficient help? What do the DJs here say?!

Shouldn't be a problem. As long as the basic BPM remains constant.

re:dream wrote:Shouldn't be a problem. As long as the basic BPM remains constant.

But how is it when the DJ wants to play a straight track (or one with another swing) in paralel to mine?
Won't the second and third beat (the ones affected by swing) always be out of sync leading to the dreaded galloping double beat?!

Your mileage may vary. Sometimes playing a track with swing at the same time as one without can sound bad. Sometimes it can sound fine. But that's different from the sound of a trainsmash where the rhythms are completely out of kilter.

re:dream wrote:Your mileage may vary. Sometimes playing a track with swing at the same time as one without can sound bad. Sometimes it can sound fine. But that's different from the sound of a trainsmash where the rhythms are completely out of kilter.

good to know, one thing less to worry about for me

(I wasn't a big fan of having to attach adaptors to my tracks)

From my own very limited experience I have a couple of tunes that I really like but they always seem to clash in any mix and I can never quite find a good spot to put them, I think largely because of the swing. A boring 4 on the floor intro really does make for painless mixing and mashing (just my own hack opinion at least). The 4/4 kick intro is so pervasive even a small fill sounds out of place to me sometimes. Rather than make a 32 bar adapter, have you ever thought of just shifting some of the groovy swing to a melodic sound rather than drum/percussion? Maybe it will still sound the way you want but be a little more practical since the kicks will line up. Just a thought.

clydesdale wrote:From my own very limited experience I have a couple of tunes that I really like but they always seem to clash in any mix and I can never quite find a good spot to put them, I think largely because of the swing. A boring 4 on the floor intro really does make for painless mixing and mashing (just my own hack opinion at least). The 4/4 kick intro is so pervasive even a small fill sounds out of place to me sometimes. Rather than make a 32 bar adapter, have you ever thought of just shifting some of the groovy swing to a melodic sound rather than drum/percussion? Maybe it will still sound the way you want but be a little more practical since the kicks will line up. Just a thought.

That would totaly throw off the way I work ATM, I don't think I would like to compromise there.
I was not even happy with the idea of a straight intro, because then changing to the groove would sound odd. Maybe a pad sound without drums as an intro?! Is that something that DJs like to work with?!

warping (for djing) sucks

TomViolenz wrote: That would totaly throw off the way I work ATM, I don't think I would like to compromise there.

I suspected as much and I respect a creative process over a utilitarian one. Feedback from those using your material would be the most helpful.

Concerning the beat swing factor in a DJ mix, it's hard to say without hearing it, or trying to mix it with other tracks, but why not fade in a straight 4 on the floor kick to see what it sounds like?

Keep in mind, the crowd won't hear much of the intro/outro in a DJ mixset anyway.

Maybe experiment with a 4 & 8 bar segment for the intro, and an 8 bar segment for the outro. Nothing wrong with creating a stripped down dub mix, or a beats mix, that the DJ can use too.

outsidesys wrote:Concerning the beat swing factor in a DJ mix, it's hard to say without hearing it, or trying to mix it with other tracks, but why not fade in a straight 4 on the floor kick to see what it sounds like?

Keep in mind, the crowd won't hear much of the intro/outro in a DJ mixset anyway.

Maybe experiment with a 4 & 8 bar segment for the intro, and an 8 bar segment for the outro. Nothing wrong with creating a stripped down dub mix, or a beats mix, that the DJ can use too.

I never DJ'ed and am just now starting to get into beats after years of ambient, so the concepts in your post are not clear to me yet (and regarding the swing question: I'm not asking for a specific track yet, but was wondering in general)

So are saying that I should attach straight adaptors, or do you just suggest using the intros/outros already swung, but without anything else but the kick?!
The latter would be easy, and probably something I would often do anyways, the former though poses the problem, that at the end of the intro section I would have to change from unswung to swung. I don't imagine this to sound good at all.
What do you mean with DJ mix and stripped down Dub mix? Just a mix with only the percussions and drums?!
How does that help with the swing?!