Ableton Forum

Anyone working with Ableton Live 8 mixing salsa music? I haven't been able to find any threads on warping salsa tracks best practices. Techniques or tips for mixing that type of music?

If you make any headway on this, I'd love to know what you come across. I'm an Ableton user and a salsa dancer who would love to understand more about the musical timing through the tool.

dont make loops in session view with salsa music: one important style parameter of salsa music is the bass playing one eighth before the "one" of every bar. also harmonic changes are set there. as live can only handle loops starting on "one", you will always have a cut inside the note and inside harmonies changes. one bar loops in salsa music should be from "four + to four +".
it´s a pitty ableton can´t handle that!

I thought that you could set the loop start point in a clip anywhere. It will then play through to the end and loop... so just set the loop start to 4+.

littlepig wrote:I thought that you could set the loop start point in a clip anywhere. It will then play through to the end and loop... so just set the loop start to 4+.

how can you do that? starting a bar-quantized clip before the "1"?
the only possibility i know is setting the launch quantisation to 8th notes... but thats kind of hopeless to launch in time. the problem is: if musical phrases are not starting on or after the "1" (upbeats, syncopes, salsa bass, ringing chords starting somewhere in the previous bar etc) lives session view can´t handle it musically because it is absolutely "one"-based.

You might be able to fake it by having the loop marker start on the 4and for all clips and then programming/sequencing them to all sound as if the 1 is actually the 4and.

A lot of work though, and probably confusing.

Saxer wrote:

littlepig wrote:I thought that you could set the loop start point in a clip anywhere. It will then play through to the end and loop... so just set the loop start to 4+.

how can you do that? starting a bar-quantized clip before the "1"?
the only possibility i know is setting the launch quantisation to 8th notes... but thats kind of hopeless to launch in time. the problem is: if musical phrases are not starting on or after the "1" (upbeats, syncopes, salsa bass, ringing chords starting somewhere in the previous bar etc) lives session view can´t handle it musically because it is absolutely "one"-based.

in situations like this I have used follow actions just for the first clip so that you can start a clip that plays that first beat then right away moves into the next clip.

To me the question is more about what you are doing with it? i.e. are you starting with a salsa track and wanting to add your own parts, or are you wanting to make your own salsa from scratch? What you want to do with it really determines how you approach it, because you can play anything without warping if that's all you want to do with it.

There is also 'legato' mode to make clips play from the same position within the clip when you trigger the next one

I have been thinking about making a video series on warping just because it is such a common area of difficulty in Live, and you've just made me think about it again.....

the main thing that stopped me from doing it was the issue of finding copyright free music that I can freely use from each genre. If anyone knows of any salsa that I could use then please let me know.... I might look into doing this again and it would be good to cover a whole bunch of genres.

I would line them out in arrangment veiw, and set the quantitize to 8ths and resample on the 4 and.

cheers