syncing breaks, time stretch, and the different options

I'm curious about your different approaches to syncing breaks to tempo. If youre making one shot slices theres no problem, but if your cutting longer slices the question rises, the first hit will be in time but the next one will be faster or slower. Some people dont like time-stretched audio artifacts, or maybe also they prefer to mix the original audio tempo with the projects bpm. How do you like it more?

Do a blend, a little bit of pitching and a little bit of stretching. Choose the right stretching algorithm to make sure you keep the snap/funk.

An option is automating a realtime FFT stretcher, this method would probably take the most work but once you print it to audio there wouldn't be latency and it might sound pretty good. Soundhack, Reaktor or probably GRM tools could get that done. Maybe there is a wav editor somewhere with offline breakpoint FFT stretching, now that would be pretty cool.

I just play the samples in different speeds.

^

same here - I adjust the pitch and key of the sample to match the tempo of the track - if it doesn't quite sync then I fine tune the tempo slightly too..

I have never had satisfactory results from any* kind of auto-warping system and think they're all shit.

*apart from ACID v1 which seemed almost infallible in it's tempo syncing capabilities - you could throw anything at it and it synced it to track tempo with bugger all fuss. all other versions of ACID post v1 seem to have lost this extremely useful functionality and replaced it with your typical "beat warping" system which completely fails to work.

You really shouldn't be syncing your breaks to the tempo. Adjust the pitch until it's playing at the right tempo, or resequence the break. Stretching it to a higher speed is useless when you can just resequence it and have it at any tempo you want while retaining the original pitch. It will sound a lot better that way...

I'm not sure I really understand what you're asking.

  On 4/20/2012 at 4:01 AM, Oscar said:

You really shouldn't be syncing your breaks to the tempo. Adjust the pitch until it's playing at the right tempo, or resequence the break. Stretching it to a higher speed is useless when you can just resequence it and have it at any tempo you want while retaining the original pitch. It will sound a lot better that way...

 

I'm not sure I really understand what you're asking.

Not. : )

Im talking about resequencing it, but not one shot slices.

And also I wanted to know the preferences of other people. I've warped loops, programmed with one shots, on tempo, off tempo...

Im curious about the "stylistic" reasons behind the decisions.

I use the pitch and timestretch knobs together on a Boss Dr. Sample DR-202 (the poor man's Roland VP-9000) and do it by ear.

haha are you able to actually use that sampler? I have one too. I can't bring myself to sell it as it was my first bit of kit, but I find it useless in the process. I'd love to hear some stuff you made with it.

I suppose it could be more useful as a live effects unit though.

hiya , you might be interested in this.

its quite good for syncing samples..... it pitch shifts em to get em to work, but you can also granulate and repitch too....

theres videpo instructions on the blog too......

http://iamthemightyjungulator.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/new-jungulator-direct-download.html

  On 4/20/2012 at 11:10 AM, matthew olden said:

hiya , you might be interested in this.

its quite good for syncing samples..... it pitch shifts em to get em to work, but you can also granulate and repitch too....

theres videpo instructions on the blog too......

 

http://iamthemightyj...t-download.html

Gave this a look; chucked in an amen sample and had so much fun just tweaking it about. Cheers for the link! It looks like it was written in MaxMSP, any chance of sharing the original patch? Would love to see how some of this works under the bonnet

unfortunatly its what i do for a living, so unwilling to share the original code.....got to protect my income...

but i dont mind sharing what i make, have a look round the site theres loads more stuff there.

i generaly get paid for making a bit of software then share it after.

its donation ware, so if its handy give i some cash..like it says on the site

you should be able work out how it works in Max/msp its not that complicated, and i dont use out of the ordinary objects..

nice will try this later, its a standalone app (no au right)?

  On 4/20/2012 at 4:01 AM, Oscar said:

You really shouldn't be syncing your breaks to the tempo.

this makes me quite irritated - why the fuck not? I'll do whatever the fuck I like thanks very much.

I'm always in sync like an award winning pornstar

  On 4/20/2012 at 12:34 PM, schlucharski said:

I'm always in sync like an award winning pornstar

@matthew olden very interesting site, thanks.

Yeah, this discussion has me confused.

  On 4/20/2012 at 10:57 AM, slightlydrybeans said:

haha are you able to actually use that sampler? I have one too. I can't bring myself to sell it as it was my first bit of kit, but I find it useless in the process. I'd love to hear some stuff you made with it.

 

I suppose it could be more useful as a live effects unit though.

Indeed I do.

I bought it very cheap recently and started using it because I wanted my samples to go through various bits of outboard gear before going into my DAW.

I'm using it for sampled loops, though I might cut them up more once I have them in Cubase. It is unique that such a cheap box can do pitch and timestretch with dedicated knobs in realtime. I haven't even used it with midi yet.

I also like the ring modulator and lowpass filters it has, and sometimes I simply use it just for an effects box.

I've used it in my last couple of tracks - if they were done I'd post them.

  On 4/19/2012 at 1:19 PM, mokz said:

I just play the samples in different speeds.

we got a winner!

i myself play with the pitch et voilà!

  On 4/20/2012 at 12:23 PM, BCM said:

  On 4/20/2012 at 4:01 AM, Oscar said:

You really shouldn't be syncing your breaks to the tempo.

 

this makes me quite irritated - why the fuck not? I'll do whatever the fuck I like thanks very much.

Depending on which tools you use, you can either pitch, timestretch or do both at the same time. What's the problem?

Pitch, timestretch, and cut the sample up.

  On 4/21/2012 at 7:51 AM, psn said:

Depending on which tools you use, you can either pitch, timestretch or do both at the same time. What's the problem?

Technically, no problem at all (well, time-stretching sometimes doesn't sounds good). The "problem" , or question, is the stylistic decision.

Stylistically I feel like it's going to vary song per song. Just tweak until it sounds good with the other sounds.

In Renoise I can just check the "Sync" checkbox and write in how many ticks long I want the sample to be. It does not stretch the sample but it will play it always at the correct pitch to match the tempo. It also keeps up with the automation.

Anyway, that's just my preference. I tried Ableton Live some years back and the way it automatically synced everything with stretching it made all sound too plastic and on time. I like it when the things are a little bit off. For example running samples off tempo and with different syncopation.