Can any Vocal Stem be warped to fit?

[Tiger Blood]

Hey guys

Im new to working with vocal stems but I love having vocals in my track so its something I want to master soon!

Question is say I have a electro vocal (128 bpm) or something. Is there a way to get it to fit the 140bpm dubstep I want to make?

Warp tends to screw with it and transpose makes it sound ridiculous but when i hear remixes in different genres it fits really well!

Just wondered what the approach is or if there is a guide to getting the vocals to 140bpm without ruining them.

Thanks for any tips guys! (im in ableton)

[mthrfnk]

Chop it up and timestretch any sections to fit. You should be able to maintain pitch and clarity going from 128>140bpm.

[Kilo Graham]

try a whole bunch of time stretching algorithms

[Tiger Blood]

Chop it up and timestretch any sections to fit. You should be able to maintain pitch and clarity going from 128>140bpm.

so I can cut say 1 phrase (16bar for example) out of the 128 and then time stretch it to fit the 140bpm 16 bar phrase without issue?

Ill have to look up sone tutorials!

[mthrfnk]

Chop it up and timestretch any sections to fit. You should be able to maintain pitch and clarity going from 128>140bpm.

so I can cut say 1 phrase (16bar for example) out of the 128 and then time stretch it to fit the 140bpm 16 bar phrase without issue?

Ill have to look up sone tutorials!

Yeah, in FL you can do this and retain the pitch, obviously it may not be in time with the notes/beats though but it will be stretched right. Further chopping may be needed.

[Tiger Blood]

Chop it up and timestretch any sections to fit. You should be able to maintain pitch and clarity going from 128>140bpm.

so I can cut say 1 phrase (16bar for example) out of the 128 and then time stretch it to fit the 140bpm 16 bar phrase without issue?

Ill have to look up sone tutorials!

Yeah, in FL you can do this and retain the pitch, obviously it may not be in time with the notes/beats though but it will be stretched right. Further chopping may be needed.

sounds like ill have to spend a while on it.

what i ideally want is the 16bar 128bpm vocal fitting a 140bpm 16 bar phrase if thats possible. If I can do that ill be able to remix a load of my favourite tracks!

[MassAphekt]

if you have a dj software then its pretty easy to beatmatch to desired bpm without changing its pitch, example, traktor!

[Tiger Blood]

if you have a dj software then its pretty easy to beatmatch to desired bpm without changing its pitch, example, traktor!

yea I have serato which will do that. but how will that help me here?

Play the acapella through serato and set it to 140bpm?

Problem would be that serato wont detect its 128 to start with to be able to speed it to 140 without an instrumental beat id assume. and recording my mix will compress the sample down

[RandoRando]

ableton is king when it comes to this, dont see why you cant just warp it without chopping it up, just try different algorithms.

[mthrfnk]

ableton is king when it comes to this, dont see why you cant just warp it without chopping it up, just try different algorithms.

You don't have to chop it. But obviously if you don't the whole stem probably won't fit with your song structure.

[Maxxan]

^Ignore most of that stuff, there's a much easier way to do this and there's no need to chop it up.

(Edit : Read to fast, thought you said you were using FL, my bad. Well, here's my advice anyway, ableton can surely do the same thing though)

FL has great tools for this. Double click the sample in the playlist and then go the time stretching tab. Right click the 'Time' knob, now you have a couple different options. For a shorter sample you can just enter how many beats it is (this is great for drumloops but not so good for long acapallas as it can be a hassle to count) and it will automatically timestretch it to fit with your project tempo. If you don't know you can select 'Autodetect' (I think, at work atm so not sure exactly on the layout but you'll figure out which one) and then it asks you the about the BPM of the project. If you know the BPM you can just type that in, otherwise you'll have to tap it out to get an approximate value. Then it'll stretch it up to fit with the song. If you don't have the exact BPM it'll still be pretty close and you can just slice it up and nudge the sections a bit to make it fit. It doesn't really matter if it's slightly out of sync.

This will pitch up (or down) the track so now go the drop-down where it says Resample and select an algorithm that fits. Pro Default or Pro Transient usually works good for vocals to preserve the original pitch whilst Resample repitches it. If you want a different effect you can try the others (Speech and Monotonic IIRC usually gives you a robotty sound for example)

Oh yeah when you do this make sure you resample the whole thing (Click the arrow in the playlist and select make unique as sample) with the new pitch to save some memory, re-pitching big WAVs can eat up project memory fast, not to mention it has to re-pitch each time you make a small change.

[Tiger Blood]

is it worth using FL for this then? Ive spent an hour in ableton screwing around with warp markers and im pretty much ready to kill someone now i cant get the whole thing to be on time at 140!

i know its a 128bpm acapella. it plays fine at 128. i place some markers randomly when its in time at 128 so it remembers its timing then change the project to 140 and its terrible. think ill just have to give up on non 140bpm remixes : l

[Maxxan]

Well, it's pretty easy but I'm 100% sure it can be done in ableton as well, can't say I'd know how though. Give it FL try and see if you like the workflow, you might even prefer it to ableton. I'm sure there's a demo or something, if you don't like it you can at least bounce the sample down. It's probably not the easiest way to timestretch a sample though D:

[Tiger Blood]

Well, it's pretty easy but I'm 100% sure it can be done in ableton as well, can't say I'd know how though. Give it FL try and see if you like the workflow, you might even prefer it to ableton. I'm sure there's a demo or something, if you don't like it you can at least bounce the sample down. It's probably not the easiest way to timestretch a sample though D:

yea i had FL when i started and moved to ableton, i do prefer ableton for everything. its just this is making me really annoyed, its not worth switching DAWS over ill justr abandon the project if I cant do it in ableton.

I have the stem, the original BPM and everything i just cant make it in time with a drum loop at 140!

[RandoRando]

is it worth using FL for this then? Ive spent an hour in ableton screwing around with warp markers and im pretty much ready to kill someone now i cant get the whole thing to be on time at 140!

i know its a 128bpm acapella. it plays fine at 128. i place some markers randomly when its in time at 128 so it remembers its timing then change the project to 140 and its terrible. think ill just have to give up on non 140bpm remixes : l

To each his own i guess, i tried to stretch a drake accapella i had to a beat i made in FL and nearly threw my laptop out the window, then i tried it in ableton and was done in 5 mintues

[Fauster]

is it worth using FL for this then? Ive spent an hour in ableton screwing around with warp markers and im pretty much ready to kill someone now i cant get the whole thing to be on time at 140!

i know its a 128bpm acapella. it plays fine at 128. i place some markers randomly when its in time at 128 so it remembers its timing then change the project to 140 and its terrible. think ill just have to give up on non 140bpm remixes : l

To each his own i guess, i tried to stretch a drake accapella i had to a beat i made in FL and nearly threw my laptop out the window, then i tried it in ableton and was done in 5 mintues

Ableton is much better for warping, but it is entirely possible in FL.

Tiger Blood, I really don't understand the confusion here. Take the part you want, and stretch it so it's fits into your 140 bpm song. What exactly are you struggling with?

[Tiger Blood]

is it worth using FL for this then? Ive spent an hour in ableton screwing around with warp markers and im pretty much ready to kill someone now i cant get the whole thing to be on time at 140!

i know its a 128bpm acapella. it plays fine at 128. i place some markers randomly when its in time at 128 so it remembers its timing then change the project to 140 and its terrible. think ill just have to give up on non 140bpm remixes : l

To each his own i guess, i tried to stretch a drake accapella i had to a beat i made in FL and nearly threw my laptop out the window, then i tried it in ableton and was done in 5 mintues

Ableton is much better for warping, but it is entirely possible in FL.

Tiger Blood, I really don't understand the confusion here. Take the part you want, and stretch it so it's fits into your 140 bpm song. What exactly are you struggling with?

i figure id strech the whole thing so i can bounce it then vut it up without issue, i import it at 128bpm and turn in warp and check it sounds fine. I change bpm to 140 and it goes all off beat, i try and bring it back, i screw it up more. thats what im struggling with! everyones talking about it like its just click 1 button and its done but this is the hardest thing ive had to do in ableton!

[Fauster]

i figure id strech the whole thing so i can bounce it then vut it up without issue, i import it at 128bpm and turn in warp and check it sounds fine. I change bpm to 140 and it goes all off beat, i try and bring it back, i screw it up more. thats what im struggling with! everyones talking about it like its just click 1 button and its done but this is the hardest thing ive had to do in ableton!

Turn off auto warp. Find the first downbeat transient, there should be a pseudo warp marker there already. Right click it and set 1.1.1 here. Then right click the warp marker again and and warp from here. Once you've done that, click on the first warp marker once again then go to the bpm and make it 140. Hope that helps.

[Tiger Blood]

i figure id strech the whole thing so i can bounce it then vut it up without issue, i import it at 128bpm and turn in warp and check it sounds fine. I change bpm to 140 and it goes all off beat, i try and bring it back, i screw it up more. thats what im struggling with! everyones talking about it like its just click 1 button and its done but this is the hardest thing ive had to do in ableton!

Turn off auto warp. Find the first downbeat transient, there should be a pseudo warp marker there already. Right click it and set 1.1.1 here. Then right click the warp marker again and and warp from here. Once you've done that, click on the first warp marker once again then go to the bpm and make it 140. Hope that helps.

the vocal has a long intro with a few random spread out words so how do i work out the first vocal downbeat from that?

I tried your instruction and it still wont line up with a drum loop!

[mthrfnk]

i figure id strech the whole thing so i can bounce it then vut it up without issue, i import it at 128bpm and turn in warp and check it sounds fine. I change bpm to 140 and it goes all off beat, i try and bring it back, i screw it up more. thats what im struggling with! everyones talking about it like its just click 1 button and its done but this is the hardest thing ive had to do in ableton!

Obviously it goes off beat. You're changing the tempo, which is basically a 1 click process. You're going to have to chop it up like I said to get it back on the beats.