question: how to not lose sound quality

cheesedoodle · Post by **cheesedoodle** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 6:14 am

O.k. When I take a song I have on itunes, and move it into the arrangment view in live 5 as an audio file, it sounds as if sound quality has been lost: If a whole song is dragged onto the arrangment view for remixing, should the file stay in beats mode, or should I change it to complex or something. I feel like I am missing something. I thought that once a song became digital, that audio quality could not diminish anymore after that. I don't no too much about live so If I'm missing something simple, please let me know. Oh, and I don't think it's a volume issue either, cause even when I turn up the volume the song doesn't sound quite as "crisp" or "clear" as it did in itunes.

Nixon · Post by **Nixon** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 7:17 am

Welcome to the forum!

you will need to use repitch warpmode for this...

RePeter · Post by **RePeter** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 10:13 am

If you have got one audio file (say an acapella) and the rest is going to be midi (or audio files which wont show as many warping artefacts) you could just set the master tempo to what the important clips tempo is, then there should be hardly any warbling.
not always possible, i know, but it helps sometimes.

vinkalmann · Post by **vinkalmann** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 7:40 pm

When warping is used (other than repitch), the sound quality suffers somewhat. I personally always use complex mode unless the clip is clear beats. Beats mode add weird warbling on tracks that are more complicated especially tracks with vocals. In order to get back what is lost with complex mode, do some research into mastering pluggins (PSP Vintage Warmer, Ozone). It takes some work to understand how to use them, but the end result is definitely worth it.

mistergreen · Post by **mistergreen** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 9:05 pm

I had the same problem....
import the song as a WAV into I TUNES (preferences-advanced-importing)
then you can drag the song into LIVE unaltered.
I TUNES default importing scheme is ACC I believe.
with this method the default tempo has no bearing on the file you drag in
to live.

hello all, this is my first post....I hope I have helped

dj superflat · Post by **dj superflat** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 10:16 pm

does warp mode affect sound quality even if you're playing at the original tempo (e.g., with loops you recorded at whatever BPM and continue to play at whatever BPM, only using warp so they loop)?

ikke · Post by **ikke** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 11:23 pm

hmm maybe a little bit off topic but I wonder why it is that when you tune (repitch no warping) a sound in Live, it gets a little bit distorted (as in overdrive). Does someone know why?
.. my hi quality is set to on

longjohns · Post by **longjohns** » Wed Aug 02, 2006 1:30 am

dj superflat wrote:does warp mode affect sound quality even if you're playing at the original tempo (e.g., with loops you recorded at whatever BPM and continue to play at whatever BPM, only using warp so they loop)?

depends on the warp mode. re-pitch is totally safe at orig clip tempo. complex is definitely NOT safe at orig. tempo, based on some experiments i've done.

there's one other mode which may not be OK, but i cant remember what it is - i think texture. (?)

dj superflat · Post by **dj superflat** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 5:33 pm

good to know, thx.

vinkalmann · Post by **vinkalmann** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 8:04 pm

ikke wrote:hmm maybe a little bit off topic but I wonder why it is that when you tune (repitch no warping) a sound in Live, it gets a little bit distorted (as in overdrive). Does someone know why?
.. my hi quality is set to on

The hi quality setting only comes into play if you are running Live at a different sample rate than the sample rate of the clip/track. It would come into play if your project is at 24Khz and the clips were at 16Khz for example. Makes no difference otherwise.

cheesedoodle · Post by **cheesedoodle** » Thu Aug 03, 2006 11:01 pm

Right on, these responses have been very helpful: I did not know repitch was the best mode for what I was trying to do. Yea, I know about the whole default acc thing in itunes; I learned the the hard way a few months back and switched it to wav the second I found out. In regards to what you said vinkalmann about looking into some plugins, I think that's a good idea, I mean, I don't know anything about any plugins at all. I also have not yet learned to use midi in live. Is there a quick utorial somewhere on how to set up a midi contoller in live(I see how you could do it in the preferences menu but I just can't do it.) Also, I'm totally into "electro" style synths: lets see, if I could give an example of songs I would say "in vocal need" from "dumb" recordings, the track "echo" from "silverplanet" records, and "where are you from?" off "brique rouge" records. All these track can be found on beatport.com and you probably won't be able to find them by title but if you "browse" for those labels alphabetically thay should turn up(they're pretty good tracks too. Check them out, if you have the time ofcoarse.) But, heres my question, What the heck kind of "plugins" or "programs" or "synthesizers" do any of you think were used to make those sounds? I'd love to learn to use any plugin that could give me sounds like that. If anyones got any brand recomendations i'd appreciate it. Also, I'm a fan of uniqness; I don't want to buy the same plugin that 90% of the industry uses. What sort of synthesizers are the best for those sounds as well? I'm really new to all this stuff and I'm learning as I go, but I'm a fast learner, and I'll do what I need to do to learn what I want to learn. Thanks for the previous responses. cheesedoodle(yadda yadda)