> Step by step
7. Basic warping in Live
1
Warping is Ableton-speak for timestretching – changing the pitch of a sample independently of its speed and vice versa. Start by going to Live » Preferences and selecting the Record Warp Launch tab. Set Loop/Warp Short Samples to Auto and Auto-Warp Long Samples to Off. This gives you the freedom to warp full tracks manually.
2
In a blank 120bpm Live set, click Samples and find any sample with a tempo in its name other than 120bpm – we’re using Break Booty 90bpm. Drag it onto an empty audio track and Live will automatically match the project tempo to that of the sample. Enable the metronome and click Play – the sample will play back at its original tempo in time with the click.
3
Double-click the clip to open the Devices View. The Warp button should already be enabled as per the setting in the Preferences. If the clip is a drum beat with identifiable transients (waveform peaks) like this one, the warping process will have spotted these and placed triangular transient markers at the appropriate points in the waveform.
4
Play the clip and change the session tempo to hear the audio speed up and slow down accordingly. Any samples you now drag in should be auto-warped to the current project tempo. Drag another sample with a different tempo in its name – such as Bouncy 117 bpm – onto a new audio track, and it should automatically play in sync with the first sample.
5
In the Devices View, hovering over the transient markers turns them into potential warp markers. Turn a transient marker into a warp marker either by dragging it left or right, or double-clicking it. Each adjacent warp marker acts an anchor point, so you can move sections of audio around as if they were elastic to alter the timing of audio within a clip.
6
You can use warping not just as a tool for editing timing, but also as a creative effect. For example, for a gated effect, try setting the Warp Mode to Beats, adjusting the Preserve parameter to 16ths and the Transient Looping mode to Off. Then turn down the Transient Envelope value to shorten the decay of each transient in the sample.