Warp Markers

[DistantStatic]

Hi, been lurking here for a while and decided to start being active in the community.

Anyways, I've recently decided to see what the fuss is about with DJing with ableton. I've been producing in there lately, mainly because of the controller usage, and I've been having a rather rough time when it comes to actually DJing and not just launching loops.

What is the problem? Warp Markers. I'm not sure if it's that I'm using bad quality music (mp3's, not wav's or FLAAC) or if ableton just genuinely has a hard time placing warp markers in a lot of music. Considering how everyone says how easy it is to DJ in ableton, this rather confuses me. I feel that just beatmatching is a helluva lot easier than doing this whole hour long process of placing warp markers at every kick.

TL;DR Ableton has a genuinely hard time warping the songs I have and going in and placing warp markers through out the entire song is a long time consuming process compared to just beat matching on the fly. Is there anyway of speeding it up?

Also, if there has been a thread already made about this can someone point me to it?

Thanks in advance

[padi_04]

http://forum.djtechtools.com/showthread.php?t=57391
http://forum.djtechtools.com/showthread.php?t=66071

[DistantStatic]

http://forum.djtechtools.com/showthread.php?t=57391
http://forum.djtechtools.com/showthread.php?t=66071

Holy crap. And to think I was putting a warp marker on every kick........ Where did I go so horribly wrong? Thanks a ton.

[Patch]

You don't ned to warp every kick. Just where (if any) there is a bit of tempo drift.

Try every 4bars (very tight warping), 8bars (tight warping), or every 32 bars (not so tight warping).

[padi_04]

Yeah, only casees I can think of having to use a marker on almost any bar is having a song recorded with a very bad drummer or a vinyl rip made with a busted turntable.

[DistantStatic]

Thanks a ton. Holy crap... and to think I was going in an placing warp markers at every kick..... Where did I go so horribly wrong?

[lingk]

Well... It all depends on how you're trying to warp the track.

If you're trying to warp a track that is say 94BPM and you want it to keep it's some "temp" but play at 128BPM then yes you'll need a warp marker every 4 bars or so.

Myself, I warp tracks to their BPM. So if I have a track that is warped to 124BPM, when I play it back at 128BPM it will sound like it's a little faster. I warp like this because it's a lot faster and most of my songs are all around the same BPM +/- 5BPM. By doing this, I can warp a track in less than 15sec and only need 2 warp markers. Sometimes I'll need more, just depends on brakes and what not. I use complex pro, but I have friends who use beats or repitch. They use those because it's more like old school beat matching to them and they want to keep that "sound" where I don't want to lose the original sound of the track.

Some people will say you only need one warp marker at the start of the track and you are good. This isn't always the case. Sometimes it will still drift and you will need one at the end of the track to keep it tight and on beat.

When you do warp, a good idea is to make a track with a 4x4 kick. Mute the kick tack and as you warp you song make sure the kicks of your track line up with that 4x4 kick. Sometimes the wave from will lie. This is because there might be a hat or snare that is a little early so it can make the wav for the kick to look like it starts ware it doesn’t, so you won't put the warp marker in the correct spot.

When you have all your songs warped, play them together and see how they line up. Make sure that nothing is off from one another.


I'm by far no warping expert, but that's just my 2 cents and what has worked really well for me.