For thos of us who DJ in ableton

[chrisw]

I was reading the article Ean posted today. And it got me thinking about warping.

So we warp our tracks to the beat so that ableton can basically beat match for us. But will warping it to the Snare like Ean suggested for traktor be better for us in ableton as well? I have had a few songs that are in the Higher BPM range that either they dont Warp perfect or they turn out to LOOK perfectly warped but when played they dont seem to light up propeperly.




I have read quite a few of the WARPing articles online. And am very proficient in it. But I was wondering if anyone warps to the snare not the beat?

[MyUsername]

I find that the snare is always more prominent in any waveform. I also try to beatmatch using the snare, especially higher bpm genres such as drum & bass.

But to go as far as calling it a habit ? No.

[deevey]

I think its really going to depend on genre.

For me .. no, due to my music consisting of 99.9% 4/4 stuff with a prominent Bass Kick ... on occasions where i goes out of the norm into breakbeat I still prefer to mix (and warp) on the first beat and backtrack my start point to a minus figure to keep stuff in time -8/-16/-32/-64

Ableton manages to warp most of my music correctly up until the breakdown at which point I have to make minor corrections to the grid - but normally only a 1/8 shift backwards.

Most of the time I just use nudge a track to metronome anyhow rather than adjusting the grid - I hate preparing "too" much.

[mostapha]

It doesn't matter. You can warp to anything that happens on a beat or anywhere else on the timeline where you can set a warp marker.

If you're getting inconsistent results, it's because you're picking the wrong part of the beat to put the warp marker on. The beat goes at the beginning of the peak of the attack of the drum sound, not the beginning of the sample.

[djproben]

I don't understand why Ean recommends that for beatgridding in Traktor. In the video he doesn't even do it himself - the "1" is on the "1", not on the snare - so it's unclear why he's suggesting others do it. If you do it, make sure you do it the same way for all your tracks, even the ones that don't have a snare in the beginning of the song. Otherwise your phrasing will be totally out of wack as traktor will line up "1"s and "2"s thinking they are the same beat.

Now for beatmatching purely by ear, on the other hand, listening to the snares is a great practice as it gives you a shorter transient to work with; it's real easy to hear if the beats are off right away. But for actually recording this info into traktor it makes no sense as it will throw all your beatcounters off.

[RockingClub]

But for actually recording this info into traktor it makes no sense as it will throw all your beatcounters off.

Totally agree with that. That's why I always set the beatgrid on the downbeat. The only reason I could imagine for beatgridding to the snare is preparing songs of different genres for one set. Some genres (e.g. R&B) tend to have some beats that appear difficult to mix with a standard dance beat. Here you could think about concentrating on snares to blend smoothly between those tracks.

[djproben]

Totally agree with that. That's why I always set the beatgrid on the downbeat. The only reason I could imagine for beatgridding to the snare is preparing songs of different genres for one set. Some genres (e.g. R&B) tend to have some beats that appear difficult to mix with a standard dance beat. Here you could think about concentrating on snares to blend smoothly between those tracks.

Yeah but again that should change how you listen to it and mix it (if matching manually), but if you start gridding it that way your files will be a mess ... unless you grid everything that way I guess. You can even put the 1 on the downbeat and still throw the snare in as if it were the 1 if that's your thing.

This thing gets to me because Ean says it in a really old video about beatgridding that I watched early on in my Traktor experience, and I wound up following the advice for a little while and had a mess of confusing files. When I finally wrapped my head around how it was actually supposed to work in Traktor, I basically deleted my library and started over.

[mostapha]

I'm not sure, because I haven't watched the video……but could he have been suggesting listening to the snare and lining up the click with it? That's often easier if you're doing it by ear.

I still think that setting grids by sight is way more precise. If you're going to do it by ear anyway, why not just map the grid adjustments to controls and do it manually the first time you play a track instead of doing it in advance?

(that's the only way I'd ever think about doing Traktor with just X1s again…and that'd take a lot of convincing)

[sarasin]

The Snare Beatgrid is handy for things like DnB and other music where the kick is not regular.

So putting your beatgrid on the snares, not the kicks, will give you a more solid\reliable grid.

Mixing tracks that are gridded on the kick and some on the snare will probably give you headaches.

[Diana]

Good idea!

I was reading the article Ean posted today. And it got me thinking about warping.

So we warp our tracks to the beat so that ableton can basically beat match for us. But will warping it to the Snare like Ean suggested for traktor be better for us in ableton as well? I have had a few songs galaga that are in the Higher BPM range that either they dont Warp perfect or they turn out to LOOK perfectly warped but when played they dont seem to light up propeperly.




I have read quite a few of the WARPing articles online. And am very proficient in it. But I was wondering if anyone warps to the snare not the beat?