I’ve watched over a dozen videos on warping, and not one was as articulate as this. Explained and demonstrated with knowledge, but also the ability to communicate your knowledge. Thank you :-)
I know that I'm late to the party, but this is exactly what I was looking for. As an open format DJ, this tutorial is a lifesaver. I just followed the video step by step and made the drums more consistent on "You Should Be Dancing" by The Bee Gees. Having this knowledge will expand my playlist and allow me to remix / mashup tracks much better than before! Great job.
I have been doing a similar thing Mark but I got a few extra tips from your video. Thank you. I play the drums and can confirm that apart from changing BPM drummers will come in slightly late or early on some beats within a bar. This changes the feel of the music for example adding a “swung feel” by very slightly delaying a note. If you line up markers on the back beats (i.e. 2 and 4) then you will generally preserve this feel and still manage to warp to a BPM because most drummers will have kept time on the 2 and 4. I personally don’t like everything to pump “4 to the floor” so I tend to align 1,2,3&4 in the intro and outro but only do 2&4 in the middle. Hope that makes sense.
Ian theDiver exactly ! It was a bit mean to real drummers. Anyone whose ever sampled james brown will tell you how those records ebb and flow . It’s not all supposed to be at the same tempo . DJ software can’t really cope with humans yet !
Here's a little story for you. A friend of mine was called to fill in for a DJ at a small club to play only 70s disco music. He normally plays only punk rock at his local gig. Needles to say his disco set was a complete train wreck when transitioning. That gave me the idea of searching for a proper tutorial on how to time warp 70s disco music and here I found this diamond of a video. Outstanding! Thanks very much.
My god, I have been contemplating putting together a mixable retro '80s collection for years, but had no idea how to go about warping these songs. Even synth-tunes using drum machines can be off tempo, as often these songs would be edited by splicing sections of multi-track tape recordings together, and the cuts were rarely dead-nuts accurate. This is so, so helpful. Thank you Mark-subscribed!
Super great walkthrough. Very thorough and clear! It's worth noting tho that the tempo increase in the original track was probably intentional. A track that raises the energy from 118 to 129 can be super useful. A lot of these tracks were produced with DJs in mind. And I think it can still be useful today! I'd love an edit that keeps most of the track as is but quantizes the intro and outro to their natural BPMs. And maybe the break. That way you can mix in and out of the track but the tempo increase is maintained, and the human groove of most of the song. 🤔
Mister Mark! I LOVE YOU!! You saved so many hours of our lifetime! Now I feel like I can warp the planet :) Thank you sooooo much! Sincerely wish you to be happy, inspired and full of the best energy! The warmest wishes and sinusoids from my heart to yours! Olya from Kyiv
"i wish there was a magic Button...." there IS a magic button! After setting the coarse tempo of the track, select the whole track (ctrl-a) and right click the track selecting "quantize settings" , adjust to 1/4 100%, then select quantize and all Beats are adjusted to the Grid and the track ist steady!
This trick don’t work on some of the older tracks. Especially on song that drift away positively or negatively or a a combination of the two. My suggestion is still to do it manually.
2023..still the best video for this task...so well done Mark great stuff Just been checking out serato and virtual dj and gotta say 20 years after first seeing what ableton could do im amazed at how poor the dj gear is when it comes to this feature..i imagine the different companies dont wanna step on each others toes...or probly owned by the same company and wanna keep the features spread out..🤔 came back to look if there was any easier way to do it but obviously not
Thanks. Yes I check the comments too hoping someone has come up with an easier way, but after a few years of doing just a handful of classic vinyl tracks every once in a while I've now got over a thousand properly warped tracks. When I do a soul gig the mixing is much easier knowing the tracks don't change bpm mid-flight!!!!
I was already fairly familiar with warping but I picked up some great tips here, particularly regarding the arrow key shortcut for shifting the location of the active loop and holding the shift key to adjust the position of a transient marker - thanks!
Great work, and clear evidence that not everyone’s a great teacher - But you certainly are! Ableton should absolutely be hiring you to do clinics (if they haven’t already). Many people working with Live (and other DAWs) seem to work only with audio material that was recorded to a click; there are thousands of pieces of music that users would like to marry together in Live that was most decidedly not recorded to a click. Everything’s easy once you know how, and Live is brilliant, but learning how to get “real” work done with it can be somewhat opaque in the beginning, which is why rare tutorials like this one are such a gift to users. Ableton Live’s ability to combine and conform disparate recordings with each other (and actually sound good doing it!) is a super-power, even though we’re spoiled, and have come to expect it from all DAWs in the world. Yes, lots of people make tutorials about all aspects of working with Live, but this one’s simply better than 90% of them. I know that you have many other talents, but you are, in fact a great teacher. So, thank you again!
I just want to agree with most of the comments below. Watched countless videos about warping and this is the only one that within 20 minutes I was warping old soul records to 155bpm for footwork edits with ease. Thank you!
Mate, that was excellent. Like others I have been all over the internet trying to get someone to help me warp old tracks in a way that I could understand and this was it. Perfect. Started djing in 1985 at 15yrs old (you do the maths) so at last I can play some classic in Rekordbox and not have to beat match on the fly. THANKYOU
Awesome, thanx, when finished ad a little "boom capture" and tweak the highs and things are good'n' gravy. One thing's fore sure: earworm-loop next morning😅
Thank you so much for this video. It was exactly what i was looking for! As a beginner in ableton who is a dj. This was an amazing howto. Thank you thank you!!
EXCELLENT, my brother. Thank you for knowing your stuff, and helping others who know their stuff but need some clues. This is a high-value video. You really helped me.
Brother Dj Mark ....thank you 🙏 for this ....La Flavour -- Mandolay infamous for bpm fluctuation therou the track hence they were a band and they prob played that live in the studio while they recorded this track
Excellent tutorial very useful and to the point. I came here after difficulties warping Bruce Springsteen Dancing In The Dark as it was originally put in on 12" Vinyl using a belt driven turntable so lots of tempo fluctuations and with the real time drumming it wasn't steady. Thank you for sharing!
intricate details-- much appreciated,- i have my ways of doing it for years but- can't believe i didn't remember the shift hold transient marker move,,- Lifesaver!
I revisited Ableton warping today with anxiety and you helped me to clearly understand it. Good careful explanation. BTW: This doesn't just happen with old vinyl. I'm working with current Bluegrass tunes - they wander too.
Hi Mark.Excellent brkdwn & very easy to follow tutorial,even 5yrs later. But thats not the Pinch? That Greg Edwards poster (Lyceum-Fri night WOW!!! PS-they always said i looked too young to let me in #:( ) & the sound of 'Check Out The Groove'...bruva you got me wetting myself right now! PEACE
I do something similar. I actually adjust the loop for 4 bars or 32 beats. I will select “complex pro” the try the first warp option or warp straight from here to see how it lines up and if there’s any artifacts in the audio and go with the better one. I would adjust 32 beats at a time because I use foe DJ applications and I learned many years ago that dj music runs in 32 beat patterns. Instead of the metronome, i use a beat track that I am sure a warped correctly as the metronome and warp all my songs to that beat. I do this because I found that if I follow the metronome, i could run two warped songs fine but if I go to three or four songs for a megamix, there is slight drifting. I don’t know why this is the case. When I learned to do three turntable mixes and multitrack mixing I learned (self taught) that all songs must reference a main song to be on beat. What’s more tedious to warp than disco records are 80s freestyle records with dub edits. It’s all manual splice edits so timing is always slightly off so I end up having to warp adjust every beat.
Thank u so much Mark, this is was very helpful, explained well and understanding. i use the older version Ableton live 7 because i cant permit the new version (yea i hear you thinking "WTF" ) but anyway, im gonna give a try.....cheeers 🍺from Amsterdam and keep mixing
Hey Mark! Thanks for the great video. I'm bringing some tunes back to life that were all sequenced but then mixed down to cassette, and the tempo drifts quite a bit. I agree the 'magic button' solution in the comments below may work in some situations, but not when the drift is substantial. Now that my track is fixed up, I can go ahead and sequence other instruments on top of it, as well as do time-based effects. Thanks!!!
Hi Mark Loved your guide. it was really useful and clear. i was also hoping you could explain how to export the track as it isnt exactly obvious cheers
Hello Mark, just found your video, as a old DJ but new to abelton this should be just what I need, I’ve been trying to warp my 80s tracks as in other vids, but those don’t really work for my genre, and is quite frustrating, I don’t know if you’re still DJING as the vid is 5 years old, but just wanted to said thanks.
I have coded an automatic solution that does the work without the heavy manual work (with rubberband as a time stretcher and classic beat detection with librosa). So easy to mix vinyl tracks now ;)
thanks for that, very well explained and useful. Just wanted to say that I don't think by criticising the drummers timing you are criticising the artistic merit of the musician, simply that you mean criticise the difficulty in quantising him to a digital computerised system, hope I got you right on that.
I’ve watched over a dozen videos on warping, and not one was as articulate as this. Explained and demonstrated with knowledge, but also the ability to communicate your knowledge. Thank you :-)
Whenever someone asks me, i learned my warping from Marc Almond. The legend, the teacher, the buddy.
I know that I'm late to the party, but this is exactly what I was looking for. As an open format DJ, this tutorial is a lifesaver. I just followed the video step by step and made the drums more consistent on "You Should Be Dancing" by The Bee Gees. Having this knowledge will expand my playlist and allow me to remix / mashup tracks much better than before! Great job.
I have been doing a similar thing Mark but I got a few extra tips from your video. Thank you. I play the drums and can confirm that apart from changing BPM drummers will come in slightly late or early on some beats within a bar. This changes the feel of the music for example adding a “swung feel” by very slightly delaying a note. If you line up markers on the back beats (i.e. 2 and 4) then you will generally preserve this feel and still manage to warp to a BPM because most drummers will have kept time on the 2 and 4. I personally don’t like everything to pump “4 to the floor” so I tend to align 1,2,3&4 in the intro and outro but only do 2&4 in the middle. Hope that makes sense.
Ian theDiver exactly ! It was a bit mean to real drummers. Anyone whose ever sampled james brown will tell you how those records ebb and flow . It’s not all supposed to be at the same tempo . DJ software can’t really cope with humans yet !
Thank you for the tip!
The best WARPING video on internet!!!!! I seen them all, and they are too simple, stupid or confusing... THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!!.
ABSOLUTELY FECKIN BRILLIANT👏👏👏 Just what I needed. Thanks youuuuu☄️🏌️
I was looking for this like 3 years, so thanksful
After watching almost thousands of videos, this is precisely what I was looking for. Thank you so much!
Here's a little story for you. A friend of mine was called to fill in for a DJ at a small club to play only 70s disco music. He normally plays only punk rock at his local gig. Needles to say his disco set was a complete train wreck when transitioning. That gave me the idea of searching for a proper tutorial on how to time warp 70s disco music and here I found this diamond of a video. Outstanding! Thanks very much.
This is the perfect tutorial for fixing these old tracks. Thanks so much!
My god, I have been contemplating putting together a mixable retro '80s collection for years, but had no idea how to go about warping these songs. Even synth-tunes using drum machines can be off tempo, as often these songs would be edited by splicing sections of multi-track tape recordings together, and the cuts were rarely dead-nuts accurate. This is so, so helpful. Thank you Mark-subscribed!
Super great walkthrough. Very thorough and clear! It's worth noting tho that the tempo increase in the original track was probably intentional. A track that raises the energy from 118 to 129 can be super useful. A lot of these tracks were produced with DJs in mind.
And I think it can still be useful today! I'd love an edit that keeps most of the track as is but quantizes the intro and outro to their natural BPMs. And maybe the break. That way you can mix in and out of the track but the tempo increase is maintained, and the human groove of most of the song. 🤔
Mister Mark!
I LOVE YOU!!
You saved so many hours of our lifetime!
Now I feel like I can warp the planet :)
Thank you sooooo much!
Sincerely wish you to be happy, inspired and full of the best energy!
The warmest wishes and sinusoids from my heart to yours!
Olya from Kyiv
"i wish there was a magic Button...." there IS a magic button! After setting the coarse tempo of the track, select the whole track (ctrl-a) and right click the track selecting "quantize settings" , adjust to 1/4 100%, then select quantize and all Beats are adjusted to the Grid and the track ist steady!
Holy shit, thanks. This is cool.
Mister Müller
, your the greatest.
This saves me a ton of work.
Many thanks from Switserland.
do not work on all tracks :) I have to do it all the way manually ;)
bless u
This trick don’t work on some of the older tracks. Especially on song that drift away positively or negatively or a a combination of the two. My suggestion is still to do it manually.
2023..still the best video for this task...so well done Mark great stuff
Just been checking out serato and virtual dj and gotta say 20 years after first seeing what ableton could do im amazed at how poor the dj gear is when it comes to this feature..i imagine the different companies dont wanna step on each others toes...or probly owned by the same company and wanna keep the features spread out..🤔 came back to look if there was any easier way to do it but obviously not
Thanks. Yes I check the comments too hoping someone has come up with an easier way, but after a few years of doing just a handful of classic vinyl tracks every once in a while I've now got over a thousand properly warped tracks. When I do a soul gig the mixing is much easier knowing the tracks don't change bpm mid-flight!!!!
one of the best warping tutorials out there. thanks. i love funk tracks but they can be a nightmare without being warped when mixing
Simply crystal Clear. Awesome job Dude 👍😉
Brilliant walkthrough
this way of warping is fantastic !!! thanks for sharing DjMarkalmond .✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿✊🏿
I was already fairly familiar with warping but I picked up some great tips here, particularly regarding the arrow key shortcut for shifting the location of the active loop and holding the shift key to adjust the position of a transient marker - thanks!
Great work, and clear evidence that not everyone’s a great teacher - But you certainly are!
Ableton should absolutely be hiring you to do clinics (if they haven’t already).
Many people working with Live (and other DAWs) seem to work only with audio material that was recorded to a click; there are thousands of pieces of music that users would like to marry together in Live that was most decidedly not recorded to a click. Everything’s easy once you know how, and Live is brilliant, but learning how to get “real” work done with it can be somewhat opaque in the beginning, which is why rare tutorials like this one are such a gift to users.
Ableton Live’s ability to combine and conform disparate recordings with each other (and actually sound good doing it!) is a super-power, even though we’re spoiled, and have come to expect it from all DAWs in the world. Yes, lots of people make tutorials about all aspects of working with Live, but this one’s simply better than 90% of them.
I know that you have many other talents, but you are, in fact a great teacher. So, thank you again!
I just want to agree with most of the comments below. Watched countless videos about warping and this is the only one that within 20 minutes I was warping old soul records to 155bpm for footwork edits with ease. Thank you!
Two years old, but still the best tutorial for warping old songs with Ableton Live. Fantastic job!!!!
Four yeast old, and still the best! Cheers!
Thanks so much for this, very helpful! - When I was a kid warped vinyl meant you'd left it sitting in the sun too long.
Hi Mark, this is right on the money. Briljant! Tnx for taking the time for making this in depth tutorial.
Excellent video thank you so much. Probably one of the best I have seen..
This is the best explanation and break down of the process that I have seen. Thanks for your time. Much appreciated for this.
This was exactly what I needed, thank you so much!
He described my situation perfectly in the intro lol. This is exactly what I needed!
Mate, that was excellent. Like others I have been all over the internet trying to get someone to help me warp old tracks in a way that I could understand and this was it. Perfect. Started djing in 1985 at 15yrs old (you do the maths) so at last I can play some classic in Rekordbox and not have to beat match on the fly. THANKYOU
loved the way you took the time to explain everything, very good tutorial thank you !
Finally !!! Thanks a lot. Have disco edits to warp !!! Best tuto ever. 🙏🙏🙏
Awesome, thanx, when finished ad a little "boom capture" and tweak the highs and things are good'n' gravy. One thing's fore sure: earworm-loop next morning😅
def one of the better warping tips I've seen so far, cheers :-)
Absolutely best tutorial on this subject.
You took your time without dwelling off anywhere.
11/10.
Thanks for sharing bro!
I have seen quite a few Ableton-tutorial video's, but none has learnt me so much as this one on the warping-subject. Thank you very very much.
great video thanks so much. the best one i've seen that i can actually follow
Awesome video mate, super helpful and clear. Great work!
I like this technique- There is so many techniques but by far this one is great! Thanks for taking your time
It's been 1 year I was looking exactly for that. Thank you very much for an excellent tutorial. I have learnt a lot!
I understand warping from watching your vid...thank so much
This is the most useful ableton tutorial I've ever watched.
Thank you so much for this video. It was exactly what i was looking for! As a beginner in ableton who is a dj. This was an amazing howto. Thank you thank you!!
EXCELLENT, my brother. Thank you for knowing your stuff, and helping others who know their stuff but need some clues. This is a high-value video. You really helped me.
hope it does help. I searched for ages, but all videos were for modern steady beats.
THis is the absolute best video. I learned so much, kudos to you!
Brother Dj Mark ....thank you 🙏 for this ....La Flavour -- Mandolay infamous for bpm fluctuation therou the track hence they were a band and they prob played that live in the studio while they recorded this track
Excellent tutorial very useful and to the point. I came here after difficulties warping Bruce Springsteen Dancing In The Dark as it was originally put in on 12" Vinyl using a belt driven turntable so lots of tempo fluctuations and with the real time drumming it wasn't steady. Thank you for sharing!
thanks for taking time to do this for us. i was really helped.
Never knew about adjusting the metronome level, nice one :)
Brilliant tutorial Mark. Thank you 🙏🏾
Finaly, somebody explains it in a way i can dig it too. tnx
Much clearer tutorial in ages of searching. Thanks a bunch and greetings from Montreal!
Thank you, sir! You made a great tutorial which helped me a lot
Great video, thanks so much. Wasted so much time watching other vids. The benchmark right here!
This is the tutorial about this subject, thank you very much for sharing.
intricate details-- much appreciated,- i have my ways of doing it for years but- can't believe i didn't remember the shift hold transient marker move,,- Lifesaver!
nice mate. its helped me layer beats over some old vinyl, but you have to be so spot on! all in the practice! cheers. s
Tq so much for the tutorial. I like the way you explain the method shown. Cheers!
Just came across your video and just starting with albelton and you really helped. I work with Maschine
Lifesaving stuff. Thanks dude! Legend
Glad it helped. Just wish there was an easier fool proof way. I'm almost completed in warping over 2000 old 12" vinyl, they mix perfect now!
@@djmarkalmond daamn i just warped my first vinyl rip and it took me around 20 minutes 🥲
It works perfect for me! Thank you!
I revisited Ableton warping today with anxiety and you helped me to clearly understand it. Good careful explanation. BTW: This doesn't just happen with old vinyl. I'm working with current Bluegrass tunes - they wander too.
Nice one man. I have had a method for years warping disco but you added a few great tips to my templates. Thank you bro.
Hi Mark.Excellent brkdwn & very easy to follow tutorial,even 5yrs later. But thats not the Pinch? That Greg Edwards poster (Lyceum-Fri night WOW!!! PS-they always said i looked too young to let me in #:( ) & the sound of 'Check Out The Groove'...bruva you got me wetting myself right now! PEACE
LoL, Yes we used to hang out at the Lyceum during his Capital Radio days. Had the pleasure of working with Greg many many years later.. a Legend!
your tutorial is the best so far. Thank you
You are welcome!
Thank you..... very very helpful - keep up the good work Mark
Thanks, will do!
You're amazing at explaining stuff my friend. Thank you so much!
Happy to help!
Great tutorial - Well explained - Clear and Concise
Excellent Video Mark! Very well explained...
Just what i needed to know to warp old record tracks
Outstanding job!
Awesome video thank you Sir
Super helpful video. Thank you.
Thanks for this, trying to warp an orchestral intro and this helped
I do something similar. I actually adjust the loop for 4 bars or 32 beats. I will select “complex pro” the try the first warp option or warp straight from here to see how it lines up and if there’s any artifacts in the audio and go with the better one. I would adjust 32 beats at a time because I use foe DJ applications and I learned many years ago that dj music runs in 32 beat patterns. Instead of the metronome, i use a beat track that I am sure a warped correctly as the metronome and warp all my songs to that beat. I do this because I found that if I follow the metronome, i could run two warped songs fine but if I go to three or four songs for a megamix, there is slight drifting. I don’t know why this is the case. When I learned to do three turntable mixes and multitrack mixing I learned (self taught) that all songs must reference a main song to be on beat. What’s more tedious to warp than disco records are 80s freestyle records with dub edits. It’s all manual splice edits so timing is always slightly off so I end up having to warp adjust every beat.
Great video, very useful. Very well explained. I shall use your method for sure.
About to finish the video and im pretty confident that now i wont have big problems on warping run to the hills from iron maidens to 170 bpm
Thank you very much Very helpful
Thank you sir. Awesome tutorial.
qq - in your example, if you exported the track would it include the audio BEFORE 1.1.1? LOVE THIS VIDEO by the way
That is just perfect !!! Thanks for sharing.
Luv it my friend!
Great vid learnt a lot. Thanks again keep up the good work blessings
Good job 👍
Thank u so much Mark, this is was very helpful, explained well and understanding. i use the older version Ableton live 7 because i cant permit the new version (yea i hear you thinking "WTF" ) but anyway, im gonna give a try.....cheeers 🍺from Amsterdam and keep mixing
Hey Mark! Thanks for the great video. I'm bringing some tunes back to life that were all sequenced but then mixed down to cassette, and the tempo drifts quite a bit. I agree the 'magic button' solution in the comments below may work in some situations, but not when the drift is substantial. Now that my track is fixed up, I can go ahead and sequence other instruments on top of it, as well as do time-based effects. Thanks!!!
Hope it all works out ok. It's very tedious but once those fluctuating beats are locked, mixing old vinyl has never been more fun!
This is awesome 👌
Really helpful. Thanks!
Great video Mark
Thanks 👍
Hi Mark
Loved your guide. it was really useful and clear.
i was also hoping you could explain how to export the track as it isnt exactly obvious
cheers
Great tutorial. Patient and thorough.
Thank you very much for an excellent tutorial. I have learnt a lot!
Hello Mark, just found your video, as a old DJ but new to abelton this should be just what I need, I’ve been trying to warp my 80s tracks as in other vids, but those don’t really work for my genre, and is quite frustrating, I don’t know if you’re still DJING as the vid is 5 years old, but just wanted to said thanks.
Well done !!! Keep On and Safe.
Glad it helped. And stay safe too
Great job! Thank you very much. But could you please tell me, how to export it correctly?
I have coded an automatic solution that does the work without the heavy manual work (with rubberband as a time stretcher and classic beat detection with librosa). So easy to mix vinyl tracks now ;)
Thanks Mark ,this helps me heaps!
What an how is best way to keep and export. Thanks
Dude this is very helpful! thank you!
thanks for that, very well explained and useful. Just wanted to say that I don't think by criticising the drummers timing you are criticising the artistic merit of the musician, simply that you mean criticise the difficulty in quantising him to a digital computerised system, hope I got you right on that.