Hello All Mighty Ableton Gods... Hehehe

I'm making my personal rock remix of The Cure's - Why Can't I Be You but I'm running into some issues time stretching certain parts & the vocals. Just FYI, I'm doing this on Ableton Live 7.

MUST KNOW INFO...
a.- The Song is... The Cure - Why Can't I Be You
b.- Original is ~ 215 BPM
c.- My Remix is 170 BPM

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:::ISSUE 1 - DISTORTION:::
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When I sampled the original riff, using Simpler, and slow it down to 170, I get some distortion.

EXHIBIT A - This is the sample slowed down and it has the distortion I'm talking about.
http://livemag.web.aplus.net/dj_woo...nSample_bad.mp3

EXHIBIT B - This is the original sample.
http://livemag.web.aplus.net/dj_woo...Sample_good.mp3

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:::ISSUE 2 - VOCALS:::
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Obviously the original vocals are way to fast for my track. So what I did, I put the acapella on Simpler and moved it up and down the piano roll until I found something that sounded kinda close to the new beats.

However, it still sounds a little bit too slow, if I move it up it sounds too fast, if I move it down, it sounds too slow. I tried the Transpose & Detuning and it still doesn't sound right.

Any ideas or suggestions?

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:::ROUGH SAMPLE:::
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Here's a rough mix of the beginning. I just started it today and by no means it's anywhere near finished. I just wanted you guys to get a feeling for what I'm doing. Yes I noticed the distortion, I'll fix it later.

http://livemag.web.aplus.net/dj_woo...on/RoughMix.mp3

Thanks All Mighty Ableton Lords!!!

Last edited by DjWoody on Jun-11-2009 at 05:54

Problem #1 is FIXED...

My problem was that my WARPING was set to BEATS. When I changed it to COMPLEX the distortion went away.

I still need to know how to fix the acapella (Problem #2)! lol

quote:

Originally posted by DjWoody Hello All Mighty Ableton Gods... Hehehe

Greetings earthling.

quote:

Originally posted by DjWoody MUST KNOW INFO... a.- The Song is... The Cure - Why Can't I Be You b.- Original is ~ 215 BPM c.- My Remix is 170 BPM

No, you're wrong. The original is at 107.5, you've doubled the speed. There is no algorithm that will allow you to mix this song at 170 BPM. You're attempting a 45 BPM drop in the tempo, equivelent to nearly a quarter of the speed.

Try making a heroin house track at 115 instead . 170 is DnB speed and it ain't gonna happen. That explains issue one.

quote:

Originally posted by DjWoody ----------------------- :::ISSUE 2 - VOCALS::: ----------------------- Obviously the original vocals are way to fast for my track. So what I did, I put the acapella on Simpler and moved it up and down the piano roll until I found something that sounded kinda close to the new beats. However, it still sounds a little bit too slow, if I move it up it sounds too fast, if I move it down, it sounds too slow. I tried the Transpose & Detuning and it still doesn't sound right. Any ideas or suggestions?

This doesn't quite make sense to me. Are you talking about the fact that the vocals are out of time or out of key? Generally, you woudn't use simpler at all. You'd get those vocals and warp them in ableton's clip view so that they're in time. Then if they were out of key, you'd transpose the rest of the set around those vocals so that they fit.

quote:

Originally posted by DjWoody Thanks All Mighty Ableton Lords!!!

Go in peace my son.

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You are the 2nd person who told me that I doubled the BPM. So instead of building it at 170, I should build my beats at 85bpm? Than that way I can put the samples back at what they should be.

I'm confused as to why though. If the song sounds the same at 85 & 170.

Thanks!

quote:

Originally posted by DjWoody You are the 2nd person who told me that I doubled the BPM. So instead of building it at 170, I should build my beats at 85bpm? Than that way I can put the samples back at what they should be. I'm confused as to why though. If the song sounds the same at 85 & 170. Thanks!

Songs aren't generally written at 215, they might be written at 107. Basically, if you consider the clip to be at 215 then you can turn up the master tempo to 215 and get the same result as if you ran both at 107. What counts here is the relative difference between master tempo and clip tempo, because that's what ableton is making up for with its warping engine. By doubling the BPM, you're not actually changing the speed per se, just changing the way that you and ableton think of it. I use this in DJ sets quite a lot to transition from prog to DnB and back, and its why ableton has BPM half and double buttons next to the clip tempo.

So basically NO, you shouldn't be building your beats at 85, because they'll still be too far away from the track tempo. you can probably build your beats at anything from 100-115 BPM safely, beyond that I'd be pitch shifting with a different program (not ableton) to maintain quality. Even then, you're not going to get it up above 120 or below 90 so BPM IMO without serious degradation.

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You are absolutely correct. I redid it at 90BPM and it sounds a lot cleaner. I also redid the pattern. Here's the new take.

http://livemag.web.aplus.net/dj_woo...n/cureClean.mp3

quote:

Originally posted by DjWoody You are absolutely correct. I redid it at 90BPM and it sounds a lot cleaner. I also redid the pattern. Here's the new take. http://livemag.web.aplus.net/dj_woo...n/cureClean.mp3

Yeah it'll sound cleaner the closer to the original tempo you get... What your doing now is the equivalent of a 180 BPM remix, which is still 35 BPM(17.5 BPM at half speed or 16%) slower than the original, but slightly better than 45 BPM. The fact that it sounds better is not related to the fact that you simply halved the tempo. It would sound just as good at 180. Its simply because theres less of a % shift now than there was between the original BPM and the project BPM.

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