Warping in Ableton then into Traktor (a few qs)

Hello everyone,

This is my first post after introducing myself (My name is Huma)

I've been following Ean's vids and blogs for a while and have no decided to come to the forum as it seems very educational.

Any way back to the point of this thread:

I used to be a Serato guy and was very happy spinning on control vinyl playing a wide variety of music including old stuff. To mix the older music I used to ride the pitch which required constant monitoring unfortunately last year in December my ears developed tinnitus but I still want to dj. So to reduce the monitoring I started using Traktor which offers the sync feature. This only works for newer music and not so much the older stuff which has live drumming.

After searching this forum, watching several Abelton videos and Ean mentioning that it's possible to correct timing in one of his videos, I realize that I can use Ableton to 'warp' older songs and give them a constant timing structure which can then be beat gridded in Traktor. Is this true as some songs have drastic changes in bpm or is there another process involved? Could anyone point out a tutorial?

If it is true can this be achieved by using Ableton Intro as I don't fancy paying 349 euros for Live 8 just for this process. If not is there any alternative software to achieving constant timing.

Finally by doing this 'warping' process will there be any degradation in sound quality?

By the way I apologize for asking this question if it has been covered before but a search on this forum only reveals a small insight into this process and a Google search mainly reveals paid for services which when calculated works out to be very expensive.


Thank you for taking your time to read my rather long post.


Huma

Yes, it's not a problem to do this in Intro, but the package doesn't give you the "Complex" and "Complex Pro" warp modes, which for full tracks, is generally what you want to be using. The other modes in Intro might give acceptable results though, depending on the material.

If you warp a track and export it, the result is definitely altered from the original. The amount of perceived "degradation" is dependent on a number of factors, though. How much warping applied, warp settings, and at what tempo the final output is at make a big difference. Keep in mind a single beat could be warped to be a minute long, so taking into consideration how much warping had to be applied to "reign in" a particular section will help you not be surprised.

Another biggie people don't always think about is how warping can degrade the sound of mp3/acc files. When you take a lossy file and add more stretch/compression through time, the results aren't always what you hoped. (A/B a few to see what I mean). Use lossless files in ableton wherever possible (.aif, .wav, etc).

That cleared up a lot for me Zac, thank you.

Is Ableton the only software that can 'warp' music? If not could you name a few?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Huma

some songs have drastic changes in bpm or is there another process involved?

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when you have drastic tempo changes you will have to divide segments of the song into seperate clips to retain the correct timing.
making a song with multiple tempos divided like this is useful in that its easier to organize and remember which songs have these attributes without having to rely on the comments section.
so instead of one file with 3 notes in the comments section, you can just have 3 files named the same but with "A", "B", "C" at the end of the title to let you know whats what. and the browser will show what each segments individual tempo is

Quote:

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Originally Posted by diezdiazgiant

when you have drastic tempo changes you will have to divide segments of the song into seperate clips to retain the correct timing.
making a song with multiple tempos divided like this is useful in that its easier to organize and remember which songs have these attributes without having to rely on the comments section.
so instead of one file with 3 notes in the comments section, you can just have 3 files named the same but with "A", "B", "C" at the end of the title to let you know whats what. and the browser will show what each segments individual tempo is

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Does this mean I would have to play the three clips separately?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Huma

Does this mean I would have to play the three clips separately?

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well the way abletons warp feature works, in order to get the most accurate playback of a file when you warp it you should get the tempo first, then warp. the further off tempo a piece is when you warp it the more artifacts youre going to hear.
you dont have to divide it but in order to get the closest to original source and in order to make it easier to remember what has these tempo division it really helps to divide the movements. this is helpful in traktor because if you rename the files so that theyre in order in the browser it will automatically move to the next "movement" segment.

in a nutshell it just gives you more control. if you want to loop out you can loop out, if you want to move into a tempo transition movement - easy as pie.