Warp full length tracks the easy way - includes movie

sickpuppy · Post by **sickpuppy** » Fri May 06, 2005 8:17 am

Hi,
Just thought I'd post this in here so everyone sees it, currently it's hidden in another thread.

[edit] NOW HERE!!!
http://www.andrewbohne.com/downloads/warping.mov
http://www.andrewbohne.com/downloads/warping2.mov
[/edit]

Here's a Quicktime movie (76mb 4:39) that shows the easiest and quickest way to warp tracks. It only shows straight house tracks but I am working on a breakbeat one, a nasty all over the place tempo one and an acapella one.

First thing to remember is that as we are working in the digital domain we can be so much more accurate than working with decks, allowing us to get right in to exactly where we need to be.

The other extremely important thing to remember is that the warp markers give us the tempo, not the other way around. This is probably the most important thing to grasp! We don't need to tap a beat, we don't need to guess a bpm, setting the warp markers gives us the tempo!

The other thing to point out is that we only need to use our eyes to warp quickly, the ears are only used if you get really stuck, but thats for another movie

Just watch the movie, you'll see what I mean... basically a lot of you are making things too complicated for yourselves.

I should have the others done by tomorrow evening.

SickPuppy

serotoninsteve · Post by **serotoninsteve** » Fri May 06, 2005 12:44 pm

Nice movie, but I would recommend you to use the metronome or a straight drumloop and your ears to find the right place for the markers.

I always start with a one bar loop, adjust it to the metronome, then jump through my song and check (by listening on my headphones) if all the sections of my song stay in sync, often I need to correct things after breaks.
It takes a little bit more time, but I´m sure that I don´t get a surprise while on stage.

Greetings

sickpuppy · Post by **sickpuppy** » Fri May 06, 2005 1:16 pm

I'm not quite sure what you're saying as there is no metronome recorded??
I've never used the metronome in Live, don't even know where it is...

I'm going to record some narrative over the movie to explain what's going on and what I'm doing.

I've got nearly three hundred tunes done this way and I can play any of them together all the way through and they never go out of time... doesn't matter if they're straight 4/4, breakbeats, acapellas, whatever...

My point is that you don't need to know the tempo, you don't need to guess at it or use the metronome. Ableton have given you this fantastic tool that does all the work for you, by setting the warp markers to the visible music cues you get the tempo...

Let me finish off the other movies and I'll show you them all working together seamlessly, 4/4, breaks, pellas all together warped using the same method, all in perfect synch.

SickPuppy

jeskola · Post by **jeskola** » Fri May 06, 2005 1:48 pm

yerp - i agree this is how i warp now - spenages fannying around with guessing tempos and metroonomes - when you can do it visually - im in the same boat - hundreds ot tracks warped - some in literally seconds - all work together no probs - only probs ive found is in "badly" produced tracks where bars have dropped or gained a beat.

hoffman2k · Post by **hoffman2k** » Fri May 06, 2005 1:55 pm

sickpuppy wrote:I'm not quite sure what you're saying as there is no metronome recorded??
I've never used the metronome in Live, don't even know where it is...

Box nr. 4 (white and black dots)

sickpuppy · Post by **sickpuppy** » Fri May 06, 2005 2:49 pm

thanks for pointing that out hoffman, I'm pretty sure I would have noticed it when reading through the manual but as I've been using Live for nearly 3 years now without ever turning it on, I'm pretty sure I'll soon forget where it is again

so if you could periodically remind me that would be great

jeskola - nice to hear I'm not alone. And yes, it is amazing how badly produced some tracks are. I'm going to use a James Brown tune for my 'bad-tempo warping' movie coz some of his stuff is just awful. might have been a funky drummer but his timing was flippin awful...

dannyk · Post by **dannyk** » Fri May 06, 2005 3:28 pm

Here's something that helped me when warping tracks for DJ use. I just couldnt get it at all - then i tried to remind myself what it was like when first learning to beatmatch records, starting off with records which have a really simple drum pattern and minimal instrumentation.

Either make yourself a simple 1 bar house beat with 4 kick drums and a couple of snares or find a record that's got a drum-only intro. (making it yourself is best cos then you'll know the exact tempo to put in the 'warp' box). Loop it.

Now use this beat as a template to play along with everything you warp. I find this MUCH easier (to my ears) than using the metronome. I can tell if the beats are phasing as i can when I'm using vinyl or CD. In reply to serotoninsteve, this way all my warped tracks will sit perfectly with each other as they've all been warped to my guide beat. As it happens they also sit with the metronome too.

I had real trouble getting tracks in time with each other before doing this, having everything comes from the same "master" it all works nicely.

sickpuppy · Post by **sickpuppy** » Fri May 06, 2005 3:43 pm

dannyk - yep, warping everything the same way is the main key to keeping your sets constant, but again you are relying on your ears when you don't need to.

the way you are doing it is still more work than it needs to be. plus your hearing can become tired and you are liable to make more mistakes and you need to spend the time playing the tunes.

if you do it by sight and 'see' the beats and music you don't need to guess the tempo, you don't need the metronome or a guide beat. you only need a max of 30 seconds on a decent rip of a tune to warp it, perhaps 2 - 3 minutes on a real nightmare one, still probably a lot less time than having to 'hear' the tempo and keep trying to get it to fit the metronome or guide beat.

basically doing it by sight removes the guess work and guarantees a perfect warp every time...

dannyk · Post by **dannyk** » Fri May 06, 2005 4:42 pm

Yes, Now I do use my eyes to warp visually, and it works 90% of the time - but when i was getting the hang of it initially it definitely helped having the guide beat playing along. Now I could do without it, but it's extremely useful to have and confirms all my newly warped tracks will match tempo with my older ones, and also if a tune gets complicated with instruments visually masking the beats it acts as a safety net.

nice movie

supster · Post by **supster** » Fri May 06, 2005 5:45 pm

great video, nice work ..

couple of things:

1 - its nice to be able to do it totally by eye without a reference playing (metronome, standard loop) - and it can often be done with some tracks

.. but i (and everyone else i know that warps tracks) find that in reality you really need to use your ears against a reference in addition to this to make sure that all of your tracks are actually going to work.

there are too many factors in getting tracks to 'sound' right together .. gotta listen

2 - the tracks you chose in the video have nice clean kick drums at the beginning and end, and its easy to line up the markers with them. plenty of tracks dont ... and again, you really need the audible reference in that case. which is often.

3 - you are lining up your markers 'exactly with the visual start of the beat - not the beginning of the peak of the attack..

however (and i made this point in another thread yesterday) ... when you do this with all of your tracks, some of them still dont sound right when you mix them.

this is because the 'meat' of the kick lies near the peak of the attack, not the visual beginning. some kicks 'swell' up ... if you mix a track with a kick like this, against one that has a kick that has a clear, sharp attack ...

they will often sound off, and you will get flamming, and you wont be able to figure out why unless you are aware of this. another reason why its so important to listen

again: great movie, not just trying to take issue with what you have here - if you are doing this with *all* of your tracks and are not having to adjust or play them against a reference - more power to ya .. it could be the nature of the music you are warping ..

but i have found i need to take into acccount what i am saying here in order to get you tracks to work in reality ...

and this doesnt take into account tracks that dont have a clear kick, have odd intros etc etc.. some which take bending over backwards to get to work ..
.

sickpuppy · Post by **sickpuppy** » Fri May 06, 2005 8:47 pm

ok, here's another one...
HERE 64MB 3:55

this one is of a track with an odd intro, breaks and not really clear beats. also once I have warped it I've stuck the metronome on (now I know where it is

so you can see it's in time with it all you metronome lovers!

supster - regarding your points:
1. It can be done with pretty much 99% of dance music tracks including RnB, Rap, House, Techno, Jungle, Breaks etc
And yes, as you can see I do audition the tracks once I've warped em, I don't just do it and save then go to the next one so if something doesn't work I pick it up.

2. I disagree, as I say I use this method for everything, including acapellas where there is no discernable beat, again with pretty much 99% success.

3. I haven't come across this, considering the length of time between the attack and the peak of the kick this is extremely unlikely, you're talking thousandths of a second... If this is a problem, once you've warped this way all you need to do is move the first marker towards the peak and all the others will move exactly the same, keeping your tempo...

Thanks, and yes as I've already said I use this method for every track I warp. I'm not denying that some tracks require the use of sticky warp markers (the yellow ones) but again I set this visually. (Will have a video of this soon)

In the video, in the browser you can see Queen's - Don't Stop Me Now, this wobbles all over the shop but using the visual clues it took me no longer to do than a straight house track.

The main reason for me doing these videos is all the posts on here from people saying that they haven't got a clue how to warp or even when they do it doesn't work.

This is the simplest, fastest way I can see that gets consistently good results 99% of the time.

I should have the acapella warping up by tomorrow evening.

SickPuppy

kent_sandvik · Post by **kent_sandvik** » Fri May 06, 2005 8:59 pm

I've noticed that if I:

a) remove from beginning any non-sound or odd stuff, so the song starts with a known rhythmic pattern
b) figure out the BPM before starting

Then it's very quick to key in the BPM, hit the warp key, go to the end with loops and make sure it's still in sync when playing with the metronome, hit a warp marker at the end, scroll back with loops to make things work, and save. It could take a minute or less with songs that have a very fixed BPM, no fluctuations or odd BPM values (such as 129.35).

It's good to record the BPM value into the song file name, or somewhere else, as you will notice that the warping will cause odd artifacts if you go beyond the original BPM (how much depends on the original track and the warp method used).

--Kent

serotoninsteve · Post by **serotoninsteve** » Sat May 07, 2005 6:52 pm

I totally agree with you supster!
Music is done for the ears, I´ve never seen music.

Kent, I always check the bpm in mixmeister, then include it into my file name like XXXX_XXXX_135.wav before importing them the FIRST time into Live then the right .asd file is created, otherwise you need to rename both files (wav & asd) once the asd already has been created.

Keep warping!

Greetings

clay · Post by **clay** » Sat May 07, 2005 11:00 pm

tried to download the files, it says they are not there.

sickpuppy · Post by **sickpuppy** » Sun May 08, 2005 8:01 pm

sorry all, I've run out of bandwidth at the moment, will try and get them hosted somewhere else...

also, to those of you who still say that you need to set the warp markers to the peak of the kick...

I've tried to let you figure it out on your own but I'm assuming you either don't make your own tracks or have little knowledge of sound and intruments etc...

load a kick into simpler, set it to play a straight 4 beat, where do you think live will start playing the kick sample from? not the peak that's for sure...

load a loop off a sample cd into a clip, where do you think it'll start playing from?

now, as this is the only point where everything will line up exactly in a tune, it's the one point that will guarantee accuracy when warping!