Warping live recorded tracks
I have some old disco tracks that I either want to: a) extend b) warp to make the bpm steady c) both.
I’ve watched quite a lot of tutorials, but I can’t seem to get it to work. I recently made a friend do it for me and he said it took him 30 mins. Problem is that I have to intuition on how to use Ableton. I’ve never used production software before, but I really want to be able to warp these tracks myself.
Any help would be appreciated.
You could… warp every single note you can “see” to the right place and then afterwards try to see which markers you can remove without the whole thing going out of sync? 
One marker at the start of each bar (except for extremely problematic areas) should be fine even for music with rubato.
Tap in the bpm before you record it to the track and manipulate/warp the audio afterwards. Works for me when I sample vinyl.
Maybe you should quantize the whole track against either a 1/16 or a 1/32 grid? I know I am trying to edit some funk tracks and I basically have to chop up the track into phrases, quantize each 1 or 2 bar loop and remix the entire track over a fixed 1/4 beat track. I am very curious as to what the successful process is for this, fixing the tempo of a live track.
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This
do you have any suggestion except “this”
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Yo,
Thanks for the suggestions. I started with vinyl, so I’m able to ride the pitch. However, it still annoys me because I’m used to being able to leave the pitch control in order to EQ etc. This makes the mix sound better.
Can anyone provide me with 2 audio examples - 1 of a track with swing, un-warped, and 1 of the same track warped to remove the swing?
'Cos I’ve read about this a lot on the old interweb, but never REALLY came across tracks that have been spoiled by warping. UNLESS - the guy doing the warping has butchered the drums by using warp markers to take an off beat snare or kick and moving it onto the beat.
And I’ve warped some funky-ass tracks in my time (Earth, Wind and Fire, Roy Ayers, Bar-Kays, Funkadelic, etc…)
Swing, and poor drumming (by modern electronic music standards!) is not the same thing.
And, for some disco tracks, you really are better of just warping the intro and the outro, or, for that matter, making your own DJ edits of the track for mixing.
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That’s not what I’m saying at all. Read this again, mate:
It’s clear that you know more than me about funk drumming, but I do know what swing is. And as far as I can tell, the other instruments don’t follow the swing of the drums (how could they? The other musicians can’t guess/predict when the drummer is gonna hang back/play a hit early, right?) - so warping to the drum pattern is gonna not only destroy the swing in the drums, it’s gonna throw the timing of the other instruments off, too.
When warping funk, you just have to use your ears and knowledge of musical structure, and place warp markers ONLY on the hits that DO land on a beat. That way, you retain the swing, and also maintain (some kind of) correct average BPM for mixing.
Some DJ’s are trying to get EVERY drum hit to line up in a transition - but, with funk (and, even in some (actually, LOTS of) D n’ B), you just can’t do that.
Some DJ’s are just gonna have to understand, that sometimes, when you’re mixing tracks with a non-standard drum pattern, SOME of the snares (and sometimes kicks) are not gonna line up. If you’ve warped it right/beat-gridded it right, the songs are still beat-matched - but you ARE gonna hear some double hits.
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Agreed.
And I still want to hear an example of a funk song that’s been warped to fit a rigid 4/4 time signature…
Something that helped me when learning was to try to just warp by phrases…
ei. the intro is say 16 bars… your gonna put a warp marker on the first downbeat and right at the first downbeat of the next phrase…. well drag that to the 17 bar mark and that phrase is perfectly in sync… then keep going forward…
Sometimes i still use this method… when tracks are too hard to warp on their own…
Practicing with small samples like a bar can really get you good at understanding how the markers work…
Try warping in phrases to get used to it… thats how i taught myself…
Nice nice. Sounds like a good idea.