THE ART OF WARPING!

Agent47 · Post by **Agent47** » Wed Aug 10, 2005 10:50 pm

Any tips on warping hip hop and breaks? I can warp house and trance no problem but hip hop and breaks throw me...so does most rock actually....and I am a rock musician too! How embarrasing! ha.

808 · Post by **808** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 4:53 pm

ben_blue wrote:
CJ Vega wrote:How about in a close future, the producers sell the songs already LIVE compatible?
This would be a major save in studio timE!

Imagine at beatport.com you could select "warp ready"!
I would pay more 10 ctns per song, no problemo!

CJ Vega
ill warp everyone's tracks for a reasonable rate

If you are serious, I would love to take you up on that offer.

Komplex · Post by **Komplex** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 3:08 am

I set up the first and last marker then warp evey 4 bars because I like it to be perfect. It takes way too long and explains why I haven't warped much music yet

hambone1 · Post by **hambone1** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 8:33 am

I'm working my way through 500+ tracks.

Don't be disheartened. It DOES get faster, especially if you assign keystrokes to stop you from mousing around.

I'm also marking sections out of each track for video and lighting. I use 's' to set a marker, 'p' to go the previous one, 'n' to go to the next one, and 'f' to turn follow on or off. I've assigned Cmd-R to the middle button of my mouse to make it easy to rename the markers on the fly.

Depending on what you're doing with your tracks, you can be more or less precise in the precision of warp marking.

PREAM · Post by **PREAM** » Thu Sep 01, 2005 5:49 am

Okay. I've read this entire thread, and I've dug up some older ones in order to figure out how to WARP correctly, but I'm getting nowhere!

I'm using Live 5 on a 64-bit AMD 2GHz system with 1GB DDR-RAM. All my music is fairly new (most of which was released less than 2 years ago), so there's no question of shitty production with volatile rhythyms.

99% of the music I'm trying to warp is Techno, Minimal, House, or Breaks (with some ambient/experimental here and there). I've spent the entire last week (at least 30 hours) on warping all my music (or lack thereof), but the beats just don't sync! With the exception of a few tracks that beatmatch smoothly, everything else is a mess of pitter-patter.

I've tried to figure out what I did differently with the few tracks that match smoothly, but I don't see any distinctions as to what I did differently. I've warped all my music to 4 bars from the first downbeat to the end of the track. I even zoomed in to the max in order to place the warp marker precisely in front of the first downbeat, but I've noticed that the marker positions ALWAYS shift out of sync later on in the track. Is that normal or is that a bug, or is it simply a shortcoming of the program?

Point-in-case:

I just want my tracks to beatmatch PERFECTLY. What is the quickest and the least frustrating method of accomplishing that?

Your time, effort, and help is much appreciated. Thanks in advance!

808 · Post by **808** » Thu Sep 01, 2005 2:06 pm

So, is anybody going to take me up on my kind offer?

Come on, you know you want to.

I will pay good money!!

hambone1 · Post by **hambone1** » Thu Sep 01, 2005 2:15 pm

I would venture to say that you're a victim of the FOD (Fucking Orange Dot).

hambone1 wrote:I'm using 5.0.1.

I put some extra silence at the beginning of a track in Peak so that I can always start a track on a downbeat, even if the intro doesn't. After bringing it into Live, I let Live have a chance at autowarping, which sometimes works amazing well and does the whole track! If not, I listen to the intro without warping and note visually where the first downbeat is. Even if Autowarp doesn't work, it often gets the tempo right. With global quantization set to '1 Bar,' I hit 'Set 1.1.1. here' and then 'Warp From Here (Straight)' and loop the first measure while sliding the Warp Seg. BPM until the second measure downbeat falls in the first position, then turn looping off. If it's a constant-tempo track, that's it, apart from moving the 1.1.1 marker back to have it start right on or before the intro. Done. One warp marker. If its a varied tempo track, I listen to it while sliding needed warp markers into place, mostly visually but then confirmed when the play tracks across, hitting 'f' to start/stop the scrolling waveform. I did a 6/8 varying tempo track this morning quickly and without a problem.

I haven't seen the aforementioned fucking orange dot when warp-markering this way. I've only seen it with global quantization set to a subdivision less than a bar.

After warp markering, I drag the clip to 1.1.1. in arrangement view to set and name locators (intro, chorus, verse 1, middle 8, hitpoints, etc) in arrangement view with keyboard shortcuts and quantized to 1 bar. I then have a worksheet that I write this all down on with tempo, length, genre, etc. to make the surround, video, and lighting easier for each song.

I hope this helps!

I'm getting through 20-40 tracks a day this way. Modern fixed-tempo fixed-time-signature (mindless dance!) rhythmic music with crisp rhythm transients is a piece of puss. Autowarp gets it right with a little help, as long as it has some silence at the beginning of the track and some semblance of a recognizable beat. I can see how swirly, rhythmless, zoned-out trancy stuff would be difficult. Older Motown/funk/disco stuff is sometimes difficult, as the tempo varies and the recording quality so crap as to smear the rhythm transients.

Nevertheless, I've had some amazingly good results autowarping varying-tempo songs.

butternutz · Post by **butternutz** » Thu Sep 01, 2005 8:27 pm

this has been a very heplful thread

respect to everyone posting for the helpful tips

Rave lizard uk · Post by **Rave lizard uk** » Thu Sep 01, 2005 10:31 pm

as part of a project im involved with im having to warp and edit around 60 tracks a week, i have only been doing it for a few weeks and my single biggest problem is having to deal with bad sound cards and hence re-aligning the artist's beats.

some of them are extremly easy to do and others are down right terrible. !!!!

my question is this, am i doing something wrong within my method or is it just producers using bad equipment..... ???

all comments are greatly appreciated....

rave lizard

hambone1 · Post by **hambone1** » Thu Sep 01, 2005 11:07 pm

I'm not sure how a producer's 'bad' sound card could affect the ability to warp-marker his track...

Rave lizard uk · Post by **Rave lizard uk** » Thu Sep 01, 2005 11:27 pm

sometimes if you are using an inferior soundcard you will expereince drift within the track, which can result in you having to make more warp markers.

my question wasnt related to my ability to make a warp mark i simply wanted to know if there was an easy method to warping so i dont have to realign each beat within a bar..... which sometimes happens.

im using 4.1, as the project im involved with isnt using 5 yet. if i was to do the edits in 5 they wont work in 4.

CJ Vega · Post by **CJ Vega** » Sat Oct 01, 2005 2:58 am

Hello members!

I think the solution will be online music stores like bewtport.com selling songs Warp Ready! That Would Really Make a Difference!

I would pay more 10 cents a song no problem...!

Is there any new warp video using live 5?

Cheers,

CJ Vega

liquidfx · Post by **liquidfx** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 2:25 am

warping a song is easy. warping an acapella is a bitch. the live analyer usally incorrectly shifts bmp throughout the 'pella, which makes me spend a while trying to correct it by ear, feel, etc.

anyone got a straightfoward technique for warping acapellas (sorry for hijack OT)?

supster · Post by **supster** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 2:44 am

liquidfx wrote: anyone got a straightfoward technique for warping acapellas (sorry for hijack OT)?

try not warping them. lay the entire acapella on the arrange grid then chop it up where you need the lyrics to fall.

reconsolidate in either one shots and/or 4 or 8 bar loops at the middle ground (bpm wise) of where your tracks normally fall

so if you generally play 125 - 135 bpm stuff, when you reconsolidate phrased vocal loops they will sound great over just about anything in that bpm range if you keep the loop in complex mode
.

CJ Vega · Post by **CJ Vega** » Fri Oct 14, 2005 2:50 pm

How about online music shops starting to sell warp ready songs!?

I would gladly pay now an extra 20 cents per song...!

LOL

I could save much more money not being wasting my time on studio warping mode..!

CJ Vega

THE ART OF WARPING!

PLEASE HELP!

advice