Ableton Forum

For a while i've been looking for the quickest way to achieve a 'record stop' type slow-down effect on audio in the arrange view without using plugins (because there ought to be a quicker way, native to live).

So it occured to me that one way to achieve this might be to set a clip's warp mode to repitch, then automate a song tempo change (make the tempo get slower), render the result and remove the tempo automation (if necessary).

heres a screen shot: http://img74.imageshack.us/img74/6835/repitch2bh.gif

So this sort of works. The problem though, is that the pitch change is very 'stepped' somehow.. its not a smooth pitch drop. does anyone know why?

I've set the clip update rate to 1/32 resolution incase that would make a difference, i also set the clip to hi quality mode, and Ram playback, just in case. but i dont think these measures made any difference.

Can anyone recommend a way to smooth the pitch drop (edit: without using plugins), if its possible?

why no plugins? get tapestop. it works great

using plugins generally takes longer than using processes native to Live. (i'm using a plugin for this job right now, but it would be quicker if the method i described gave good results.. thats what i'm hoping is possible).

If you're using a plug-in to do it, what about resampling the audio of it slowing down? That should solve it and you could do away with the plug-in after that.

no offense, but messing around trying to get this to work/sound right does not sound quicker than just hitting the big button on tapestop

complication is masterbation... simplify, and move on..

erichkopp wrote:If you're using a plug-in to do it, what about resampling the audio of it slowing down? That should solve it and you could do away with the plug-in after that.

thats what im doing currently. the reason im still not satisfied wit hthis approach is the time it takes to set up a plugin to create one 'spot effect'.. i'm hoping there is a quicker way.

no offense, but messing around trying to get this to work/sound right does not sound quicker than just hitting the big button on tapestop

no offense taken. there are more steps involved than just 'hitting a button' though. There are are at least two extra steps that have to be performed every time that make the plugin based approach slower than a native approach:

* drag instance of tapestop to a channel
* find corrent parameter to automate to create pitch drop

This doesnt sound like much maybe, but if you perform these steps alot (i do) it quickly adds up.

Heh: actually i'm not interested in arguing this i was hoping instead that someone would know of a way to get the approach i described in my first post working more smoothly.. it seems to me that this should be giving good results, but isn't. and im curious why.

Possibly your getting these results because your automation is linear, try the automation with more of an exponential curve to it, to me that seems like the way it would happen naturally

by the way, there was definitely at least one thread on this topic in the past. i know it is difficult to search on this forum - but maybe have a go

i can't remember if a good solution was ever reached.

what is the plugin you are currently using?

I use Tapestop to get this effect - the setting to get a 1210 style platter stop is - Down 32%. I have the Tapestop button reversed (so that it displays a "stop" symbol before you press stop, and a "play" button after) mapped to a key and it works great. The best part is, you can set the Up to 0% and slam the track back in with the push of the same button.

thanks for the suggestions. im going to try the latest version of tapestop in any case.

the plugin i'm using is a thing made in synthmaker called record stop by a guy called sam bean, i don't know if its online anywhere.

longjohns: i have posted about a similar topic in the past. This time though i was particularly interested in exploring the possibilities of using tempo automation and repitch warp mode.. it doesnt sound like anyone else is doing this successfully though (?).

looking at your screenshot, i'm wondering if there's any chance that the resolution of the slowdown could be improved by changing the range over which the envelope is drawn.

i have no idea if it would make it smoother, but i see that your tempo envelope range is 20-373, with the main tempo appearing to be maybe 170bpm or so.

thanks for the suggestion longjohns. Changing the tempo range doesnt seem to make a difference either though.