Hi guys,
A mate of mine has asked me to do a DJ set for him at his birthday which is not normally something I would do but hes a mate so what you going to do right?
He provided a set list of tracks he wanted playing which included stuff like Slayer, Machinehead, The Prodigy, Pendulum, NIN etc etc. A kinda dancefloor metal set.
So I whacked all these tracks into Mixed in key so i have all the tempos and keys very useful!!
I know that I now have to warp the tracks and potentially cut em up into breaks, choruses etc to make it easier to blend a set together.
What I’m confused about is that these tracks are pretty random and the tempos are all over the place so does that mean that i have to set some kind of global tempo changes like i would in cubase or do i just set the tempo to something as close to in between as possible?
Am I missing something important about warping the tracks? I dunno i seem to have gotten confused about this?
Any help will be most appreaciated
Cheers
Hey
My take on things…
Basically it sounds to me like you’re intending to mix mostly records where the musicians were not playing along to a click track, metronome or had their recording efforts later manipulated in protools (for example) or quantized in some other way.
In the case of music that is recorded with a click track you will still get tempo variations from one or all musicians from time to time, that’s what makes us human - in the days before computers this (done well) was one of the things that could give a record soul but that’s another story.
The non click track songs are harder to warp and retain good feel unless you get abit more creative with the editing.
Smaller swing or variation in songs that were recorded to a “headphone beat” are easier to deal with.
Using one warp marker on the very first transient of the first good down beat and another on the songs last end of bar (exclude random intros and outtros for a minute) you can effectively time stretch the track (without affecting pitch) so that the major transients fall more in line with your chosen global tempo grid. You can get really close like this.
After that you can edit individual beats to conform more closely, effectively quantising the main beats - this work can be minimised greatly by how well you do the first step. I reiterate that in your attempts it can be easy to lose the feel. It is easier in some respects to chop it up repeating smaller samples from within the song to create a remix. I suppose that’s the main difference between a remix and an edit.
I come across this a bit digitising my vinyl. Even a house record, 4:4 computer beat, drifts in tempo sometimes from the deck it was recorded off.
First you fix up the global tempo - then you can start tweaking individual beats or phrases to fix up the details.
There’s probably vids on here about warping and definitely on youtube - watch a few there are some good ones that visually show better what I’m on about.
Just an aside…
I’m a producer dj drummer etc etc
But sometimes it’s ok to be a disc jockey in the old fashioned sense - ie just play your mates records. He’ll probably have just as good a time. Making it danceable doesn’t have to mean quantising it. (especially if it’s just booze fuelling the party! 
I’d probably do a combo of both approaches then everyone wins.
Hope this helps man.
DJ Erik B/mister7/erikus
Yeah you make some good points man. I’m not sure I really need to quantise the heck out of these tracks. I have been following a Dubspot tutorial on warping full songs which basically outlined the process you described. It’s just with old metal bands like slayer im pretty sure they were drunk as **** and never heard of a click track because goddamn theres swing and then there is paying no heed to a standardised time whatsoever. lol :w00t: Still the tracks still sound pretty awesome and Slayer are legends so what the **** do i know.
I’m still a little vague on what to set my global tempo to once i have warped all the individual tracks to their respective tempos? or is it not all that important as the tracks will play back as normal no matter the tempo?
Set your global tempo to a speed you think will sound good.
Once the track is properly warped and fits the grid you can then change the global temp up or down - you can even automate all the swing back into it if you want!
Cheers man.
Nope im still not getting something. I want to be able to sort of create mini mashups and stuff on the outros or break downs of the songs, but at the moment i cant get the tracks sync’d up so that can happen, as i have said i put them through mixed in key so i have picked tracks that should work together harmonically and im trying to pick sections wher the beats wont clash too much, I have set up the tracks in a readily availble DJ-ing ALS file i found on another site. I’m still bashing my head on the desk lol. This is why I dont DJ.
they both have to be the same bpm dude.
dunno what ur setup is, but if u have your MAIN BPM in ableton set to 128…
then you wanna warp all your tracks to 128.
Its all about the first transient marker that you see.
ableton shows u this when it loads your tracks.
sometimes the transiet is on the 1st beat sometimes it is not. practice makes perfect.
once you get that then move it to 1.1 in ableton. or just right click and do (set 1.1 here)
right click the marker → warp here straight.
the track should now be set to 128 IF you moved the first beat correctly.
sometimes it is 128.02 and you have to go to the END of the track.
at the end of the track, find the last beat or transient (around the last is OK)
click the transient marker and snap it to the closest grid until it says 128 exactly.
sometimes you have to zoom up pretty good to find the exact point for the transient.
it MUST be exact. or its not gunna work. oh yeah and obviously 130 mixes OK with 128.
i just gave you a tutorial on how to do it correctly.
if you wanna make mashups. try looking at the 2 audio channels in arrangement view.
line the tracks up together in arrangement view and you can visually SEE where you should be moving the crossfader between the two tracks to get a kind of mashup feel. practice makes perfect. each track is different. you need to listen & watch. can you do a mashup in session view? Absolutely, but you have to know the music perfectly and you still need to watch the wav form to get it perfect. i would start in arrangement view to get a better feel for it. that will make it easier. just worry about mixing 2 tracks together. not 12.
Cool great tips man, I think you just clicked a few things into place in the sludge I call a brain. I’ll take it 2 at a time and go from there. Thanks
Yeah all good stuff there.
This is a pretty good vid. It’s not like my method but I might give it a go too for fixing up vinyl recordings on digital.
[url]#1 Power Warping Secret in Ableton Live 8 - tutorial - YouTube
the tutorial’s is better than the music of course but he does apologise for it.
Ok I’m not an Ableton DJ as i still prefer CDJs but just thought i’d put in my 2 cents…
I think you’re trying to over complicate things buddy, those metal tracks dont and shouldn’t really be messed with too much, try to play them at a similar time to each track which has a similar BPM, otherwise you’re going to be all over the place with it. For example going from Pendulum to NIN may not be the best idea, beat matching wise.
If you think of how they work things in the commercial club scene, they don’t always beat match every track together, or when they do, they keep similar styles / speeds together in the same sections. What would be a good idea is to cut things up so that your tracks start at a main section, so it doesn’t have the intro section but goes straight into it, that way it keeps the energy up and people instantly recognise once it’s dropped.
Likewise coming out of a previous track do it at a section near the end but don’t let the track do it’s typical ‘fade out’ thing, for example the chorus ending (at the end of the track) may end it’s section and then BOOM you start new section of your new track. It’s less of the mixing style of DJing but more of the chopping and crossover style, if done well it’s just as effective and will sound more natural than trying to beatmix them as they arnt that type of music.
I’m not actually sure thinking about what i’ve just wrote whether i’ve made sense to you, but it makes sense in my head haha, wish i could demo to you, but if it did make sense then great!
In a nut shell… try not to over complicate and use fast crossovers rather than gradual mix ins.
Yeah, what Roben said is what I have been thinking about this thread.