Ableton Forum

I mentioned this idea on here a couple of years ago and I know slicers have been talked about to death. Still, I thought I would repost what I think would be a very simple and elegant way to integrate a slicing function into Live without the need for a "Slicer" plugin.

Step 1: Warp to Transients. When you right click on a warp marker there should be an option to "Warp to transients" which would pop up a dialog box with options for threshold and release. You should see the placement of the warp markers as you change the threshold settings and then click "OK" to apply them.

Step 2: A new "Cut" warp mode. This mode would simply add silence to the end of a section if it needs to be longer and cut it off if it needs to be shorter. In addition there could be parameters (where the "grain" and other settings now sit for some warp modes) for crossfade and/or decay so the cuts wouldn't be too abrupt.

And that's it. A slicer that could be integrated fairly simply and transparently into Live. What do you think?

melocoton wrote:What do you think?

Unfortunately I’m slowly loosing the will to care anymore to be honest, anyway I think the abes have quite a few options in the way they could implement slicing in Live, but the main thing is I just wish they would hurry up with it. I still find it strange that an app that’s primarily based on using audio still has not got a slicer or in built audio editor.

For a start a few improvements like recognising information in acid and apple loops or being able to import REX files would be a step in the right direction. If you could specify that warp markers were placed using the info that’s already in these files, rather than having to manually warp files from scratch, this would make life a bit easier.

If you also had a command to slice on the warp markers when in arrangement in one go, that would make life easier too, rather than having to manually split the clip up.

melocoton wrote:simple and elegant

I’m not sure that’s in fashion at the moment, now where is that edit button...

ashley_k wrote:For a start a few improvements like recognising information in acid and apple loops or being able to import REX files would be a step in the right direction.

If you also had a command to slice on the warp markers when in arrangement in one go, that would make life easier too, rather than having to manually split the clip up.

Yep, those are both great suggestions.

The "Cut" mode looks like an elegant great suggestion.. It the only thing I miss from other DAWs

finally being able to keep the transient attacks _as_ in the original file, without having to use repitch mode....

Something (vaguely) similar could be obtained - with great pain - if Beats mode's Transient size could be automated via clip envelopes, but this is not possible

Come on Abes having this feature should not be harder than having video files

I don't know if this has been posted already - I was not able to find it - but the simple way I emulate a Recycle-style "Cut" warp mode on a clip in Live 5.2 is the following:

1) Turn off warping for the target clip and put it somewhere in the Arrangement view, and turn snapping off

2) manually "splice" the audio file by splitting it at each attack point in the Arrangment view (_painful process_ )

3) reactivate snapping and move/copy slices to desired "quantized" positions.
This can also be painful as there is no crossfade in the Arrangment view and slices "eat up" with each other... Multiple tracks must be used if there are more slices playing simulateously.
It is a good idea to keep a backup of the spliced clip fragments on another track so that splices start and end markers do not get messed up.

4) By having a loop of the slices in the Arrangment view and changing the project's tempo, different behaviours can be obtained:

- if the slices Warp mode is off, they will get "shorter" or "longer" with respect to the tempo but they will not change pitch

- if the slices Warp mode is set to Re-pitch, the whole re-constructed loop will change pitch, in old-school sampler style Also, every slice's Clip Envelopes can be used, so it's possible to get sampler-like controls on the slice amplitude envelope, filtering, etc....

As it has been already suggested, slices can also be imported into Simplers or Impulses and triggered via MIDI for easier editing.....

5) Once the desired result is obtained, select the slice clips and Consolidate them to get a new clip containing the loop


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This is obviously a painful process, doing it with warp markers and automatic beat detection would be great... Also, I think the "global shuffle" setting does not affect clip triggering in the Arrangment view.

Just my two cents on the matter, maybe it can be useful to someone

/Mario