> Step by step

1. Warping track parts to fit a new tempo

1 When remixing, you’ll probably want to change the tempo of the original stems to fit your remix, so you need to get your head around timestretching. This process can vary among DAWs, so we’ll have a look at a few different options. In FL Studio 12, we’ll drag Drums-118.wav into the playlist window. Turn on the metronome – it’s way out of time with the drums… 2 FL Studio 12 doesn’t automatically warp clips. To activate timestretching, click the global Stretch button at the top of the playlist. Drag the right-hand side of the drums clip to bar 5 and hear how it’s now in sync with the metronome. The default mode pitchshifts the audio. To retain the pitch, double-click the clip and change the Mode dropdown to Stretch. 3 Bitwig Studio 2 and Ableton Live 9 handle timestretching similarly. Bitwig automatically detects a clips’s tempo and warps it to match the session BPM. Load in Drums-118.wav and change the session tempo to 128bpm and see how the audio stays locked to the beat and retains its pitch. Some DAWs offer different algorithms to suit the audio – we’ll switch to Live 9 to demonstrate that… 4 In Live, double-click the clip and head to the Warp section. The dropdown allows you to change the warp mode. The default is Beats, which aims to preserve transients, so it’s perfect for drums. The other modes are designed to work best on different material. For full tracks, Complex mode can often bring the best results, but it comes with a higher CPU hit.