Ableton... NO BASS !!!

Smile on Impact · Post by **Smile on Impact** » Wed Dec 06, 2006 7:39 pm

Honestly,
I'm gonna finish my glass of wine and go watch a movie with the lady.
so nup.

FoundationStepper · Post by **FoundationStepper** » Wed Dec 06, 2006 7:47 pm

in the interests of public service I hope you find motivation to

it woud be much more interesting in terms of bass rolloff

i would like to know about the slope of the rolloff, it would tell me more

FoundationStepper · Post by **FoundationStepper** » Wed Dec 06, 2006 7:48 pm

you will note im not attacking you on your point re the bass, im just interested in how it works in terms of using it myself... its for the greater good!

fonk · Post by **fonk** » Wed Dec 06, 2006 8:05 pm

feelslikeafukinrevolution wrote: Later Tools Have adjustable Bounce Convertion "tweakhead' is the best.

That's been a bounce option in PT for as long as I can remember. (which is a fair while)

a1studmuffin · Post by **a1studmuffin** » Wed Dec 06, 2006 11:14 pm

One thing you might want to check out that could be causing what you're seeing:

If you're using audio clips in Live, they default to having Warp enabled, with Fade + HiQ turned on.

Especially for something like a kick/snare drum with a sharp fast bassy transient at the start of the audio clip, having fade turned on will mean it fades over a short duration of time into that audio clip, so you might be losing a lot of the kick/snare snap. Also leaving warp + HiQ on is designed for repitching/warping tracks to match the tempo of the song, so if the audio clip is at the same BPM as the track, turn all that shit off to guarantee what's coming out is a verbatim copy of what's in the WAV file. Of course now you'll hear an audible click if the audio clips don't start and end on a zero crossing, but this is an important step for percussion.

I really think the problem isn't Live - you're obviously testing this stuff on a full track by the looks of that spectrum analysis... get empirical about it damn it and start narrowing down the problem rather than just blaming Live and saying you can hear it

Smile on Impact · Post by **Smile on Impact** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 8:33 am

I'm sure with all it's funtionality turned of live sounds great.

FoundationStepper · Post by **FoundationStepper** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 8:47 am

log please

Direkt · Post by **Direkt** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 10:03 am

FoundationStepper wrote:log please

Why don't you do it mate?

And Fonk, he's not talking about the bounce function, but the "tweekhead" option in the bounce function.

FoundationStepper · Post by **FoundationStepper** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 10:09 am

cos i dont have abelton

this is the point, its allowing me to suss it out... im thinking about using abelton wired into max for a sound design project that focuses on the lower octaves...

plus i dont have any analysis plugs or apps at this point...

heres hoping

Smile on Impact · Post by **Smile on Impact** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 4:24 pm

I can't do a log view on CE pro.
but here is a non linear view which show the Bass better.
However it stops at 80hz so it dosn't really show the drop off i can hear.
but it does show the massive bass cut that happens.

Original

and after ableton.

FoundationStepper · Post by **FoundationStepper** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 4:37 pm

fuck me

thanks for that

very interesting

interpolating between the pics it looks like like a fairly smooth roll off from about 350...

do you feel it drops again suddenly after 60, or its just the tail end of the slope? does it sound like a shelving filter or a parametic curve to you?

live wont be very good for my project, im dealing with nothing much over 300 Hz...

(BTW i always thought if it was a nonlinear view it would be a log view by default? the presentation of the graph generally corresponds to what i recognise as a log view... could be wrong though)

LuKo · Post by **LuKo** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 4:44 pm

that is very interesting and yes thanks for taking the time to post the visual info

Should post this up at the ableton forum - I reckon you would get a pretty definitive answer on this, be interested to see what the abes themselves have to say

I was expecting to see something minort if anthing, but thats certainly significant

Smile on Impact · Post by **Smile on Impact** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 4:47 pm

I thought you ment stats like.
200hz -8db
350hz -5db
That kind shit..

Yeah I'm facing the same issue.
I use Apogee cons which slam the bass so nicely and push up the harmonics.
Also I use Neve pre with the smoothest overtones on the planet and ableton just chucks them out the window.
what's the freakin point !

FoundationStepper · Post by **FoundationStepper** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 4:50 pm

nah i just expected that redoing the anaylsis in that view would be a better visual explanation of the drop off in the lower region.

linear view has its uses but dont correspond to my way of thinking so much...

flippo · Post by **flippo** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 5:29 pm

a1studmuffin wrote:If you're using audio clips in Live, they default to having Warp enabled, with Fade + HiQ turned on.

Especially for something like a kick/snare drum with a sharp fast bassy transient at the start of the audio clip, having fade turned on will mean it fades over a short duration of time into that audio clip, so you might be losing a lot of the kick/snare snap. Also leaving warp + HiQ on is designed for repitching/warping tracks to match the tempo of the song, so if the audio clip is at the same BPM as the track, turn all that shit off to guarantee what's coming out is a verbatim copy of what's in the WAV file. Of course now you'll hear an audible click if the audio clips don't start and end on a zero crossing, but this is an important step for percussion.

what about this though?

dopamine · Post by **dopamine** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 9:41 pm

feelslikeafukinrevolution wrote:So I uploaded A track of mine at the same tempo and bounced it straight away.

here's the original .wav.

and here's the ableton version.

Now that's a big fukin differance, so make my bed for a month or some shit.

ah....

maybe that explains why it sounds differant !!!

Is that with warping or without?

Which type of warping did you use?

There is a big difference between using ableton for djing and prodution as ANY timestretching is already well known to degrade audio quality. The fact that people instantly forget this when they start using live is very interesting actually. It's not magic, it still works on relatively well known audio processing principles.

For example, load a mastered track into Live, warp it and change the bpm by 5-10bpm then render it. Now look at the wav in an audio editor. It appears now to be unmastered. That's the timestretching pulling the audio apart on every beat and messing with the transients.

At the end of the day, it does what it does well. No reason to complain that I can see. It's not perfect but what is?

a1studmuffin · Post by **a1studmuffin** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 12:53 am

Yeah.. it is a bit of a pain in the arse when you're using it for production having to remember to do it for every clip, but if you're organised and have a proper work flow (eg. a checklist to run through before calling a track complete and sending it off to be mastered) it shouldn't be a problem. If your ears are any good you should be able to hear such a dramatic change in transients/audio quality anyway.

This whole discussion has started making me seriously rethink using the MASTER TEMPO button on my CDJs actually, as it's effectively doing the same thing to keep a song in its original key, and you can definitely hear it fucking with the transients when you start adjusting the pitch by more than 1-2%, and I've only been doing this in my lounge room, I imagine in a club it'd sound even worse.

Smile on Impact · Post by **Smile on Impact** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 8:50 am

dopamine wrote: Is that with warping or without?

Which type of warping did you use?

There is a big difference between using ableton for djing and prodution as ANY timestretching is already well known to degrade audio quality. The fact that people instantly forget this when they start using live is very interesting actually. It's not magic, it still works on relatively well known audio processing principles.

For example, load a mastered track into Live, warp it and change the bpm by 5-10bpm then render it. Now look at the wav in an audio editor. It appears now to be unmastered. That's the timestretching pulling the audio apart on every beat and messing with the transients.

At the end of the day, it does what it does well. No reason to complain that I can see. It's not perfect but what is?

Well it was at the tracks home tempo.
So it's not like the sound got gradually worse, that's just how it sounds in ableton.
It is most likley the warping that affects the sound quality so much.
but what good is it to me now?

I use hi quality gear and my tracks sound the better for it,
but not after they have been in ableton.
I may aswell be useing a 002, or even Mp3s because the sound is so dramaticly butchered.

Live is allways treated like "the golden child"
So you can't ever critisize it, no matter what you are hearing.

I think for Now, I will Dj with Cds.
I can make break discs, mix them in, filter, there is plenty of freedom with the format.
Not as much freedom as with live.
but I can't use somthing that sounds like that..

It's just small.

Luka · Post by **Luka** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 12:27 pm

yeah i was thinking it had something to do with warping

abelton is a platform for live performance, .
i hear of lots of people moving back to cubase for production.

i cant see how this little alteration in the dynamics would move someone to return to dj'ing with cd's. im guessing your just playing tracks without cutting them into loops.

that is the beauty of it, using all the element of your tracks to build new sounds.

maybe someone will make a breaks mix of de9 and you guys will cotton on to how good abelton is for performance :p

Smile on Impact · Post by **Smile on Impact** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 1:36 pm

Luka wrote:yeah i was thinking it had something to do with warping

abelton is a platform for live performance, .
i hear of lots of people moving back to cubase for production.
:p

I'm not gonna use it for performance because of the way it sounds.

i can drop all my loops do disc and have plenty of flexibilty.

It is a very powerful platform, stable with lots of cool tricks.
but bottom line for me is the sound.

And it is a big differance.

FoundationStepper · Post by **FoundationStepper** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 1:45 pm

personally i feel in two minds about the "flexibility" thing...

its cool to drop loops and snippets, but although abelton sets can be polished i sometimes wonder really how much fun it is, to do live and to hear. can lend itself to preprogrammedness...

i guess my approach to mixing is not really orientated around long mixes, or heaps of interweaving on the whole, its natural for playing jungle/breakcore/dancehall not to find a lot of room for that (breaks and vocals dropping like crazy).

instead i like to find contrasting tracks that play off each other interestingly for shorter periods of time...

its hard to seperate this approach from the limitations of playing records, or the music genre... but a typical, clever abelton set doesn't really match with this style...

FoundationStepper · Post by **FoundationStepper** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 1:57 pm

aaron spectre does it well but his sets start to bore me now...

listening to a maga bo set yesterday, obviously abelton... a nice and clever mix but felt a little flat or something.

fonk · Post by **fonk** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 4:37 pm

Direktor wrote: And Fonk, he's not talking about the bounce function, but the "tweekhead" option in the bounce function.

Ummm.... that's exactly what I said.

The "tweak heads" bounce option has been in ProTools for as long as I can remember.

fonk · Post by **fonk** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 4:40 pm

dopamine wrote: There is a big difference between using ableton for djing and prodution as ANY timestretching is already well known to degrade audio quality. The fact that people instantly forget this when they start using live is very interesting actually. It's not magic, it still works on relatively well known audio processing principles.

Xelpmok · Post by **Xelpmok** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 6:48 pm

ok I don't get it, if you're only using ableton for mixes, what's so difficult about boosting the bass a little to compensate? for example, throw an eq8 over each channel or the master.

flippo · Post by **flippo** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 7:00 pm

jesus fucking christ!

Xelpmok · Post by **Xelpmok** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 7:34 pm

also, when playing in clubs/parties, people are generally drunk and drug fucked and the sound system is usually shit.

will you not play because of these factors?

Capo-wear-I · Post by **Capo-wear-I** » Fri Dec 08, 2006 9:00 pm

feelslikeafukinrevolution wrote:
Luka wrote:yeah i was thinking it had something to do with warping

abelton is a platform for live performance, .
i hear of lots of people moving back to cubase for production.
:p
I'm not gonna use it for performance because of the way it sounds.

i can drop all my loops do disc and have plenty of flexibilty.

It is a very powerful platform, stable with lots of cool tricks.
but bottom line for me is the sound.

And it is a big differance.

OK - this needs clearing up.

The Warp modes :

Re-pitch - Think of it like 'Vinyl' mode. No timestretching involved. Increases pitch automatically when you increase tempo. Does not affect quality. This can be proved by reversing the phase of the original track (at the same tempo) and comparing it to the re-pitched version. You should get 100% cancellation - showing that the files are identical. No ifs or buts, it is exactly the same. See extensive posts at Ablteton forum on this - I don't want to re invent the wheel here.

Beats - Chops the track at a specified interval. Can make yr bass sound warbly as the chops will try and cut over bass notes. Makes a mess of most things apart from Beats, but does have it's uses.

Texture - Basic timestretching with grain size. Useful for Vocals and other things. Not much use for complete tracks and gives a slight 'chorus' effect when you go too far out of tempo.

Tones - useful for Log sustained sounds. no good for material with rhythm. Probably the lease useful for Dj-ing.

Complex - Useful for most tracks with transients, but like any timestreching, it definitely affects sound quality. Live within it's limitations.

So basically use re-picth where quality is paramount.

a1studmuffin · Post by **a1studmuffin** » Sat Dec 09, 2006 12:31 am

Welcome Capo

Capo-wear-I · Post by **Capo-wear-I** » Sat Dec 09, 2006 3:16 am

a1studmuffin wrote:Welcome Capo

I get around...

unsoundbwoy · Post by **unsoundbwoy** » Sat Dec 09, 2006 6:54 am

but y'all are missing the point.
his track wasn't pitched.
it was just loaded in at normal pitch and then re-rendered dry.

flippo · Post by **flippo** » Sat Dec 09, 2006 7:02 am

unsoundbwoy wrote:but y'all are missing the point.
his track wasn't pitched.
it was just loaded in at normal pitch and then re-rendered dry.

yes, but were all the functions related to that disabled?

Smile on Impact · Post by **Smile on Impact** » Sat Dec 09, 2006 9:03 am

flippo wrote:
unsoundbwoy wrote:but y'all are missing the point.
his track wasn't pitched.
it was just loaded in at normal pitch and then re-rendered dry.
yes, but were all the functions related to that disabled?

Then the main point:

WHY WOULD I USE ABLETON WITH THE FUNCTIONS DISABLED !!!

Xelpmok · Post by **Xelpmok** » Sat Dec 09, 2006 9:08 am

don't use it then! good lord, ur one anal fucker...

Luka · Post by **Luka** » Sat Dec 09, 2006 11:16 am

hehe yes,

maybe buy a bass guitar and play that instead

flippo · Post by **flippo** » Sat Dec 09, 2006 12:50 pm

feelslikeafukinrevolution wrote:
flippo wrote:
unsoundbwoy wrote:but y'all are missing the point.
his track wasn't pitched.
it was just loaded in at normal pitch and then re-rendered dry.
yes, but were all the functions related to that disabled?
Then the main point:

WHY WOULD I USE ABLETON WITH THE FUNCTIONS DISABLED !!!

not all the functions ya clown, just the ones designed to aid timestretching. If you arent changing tempo turn 'em off.

Smile on Impact · Post by **Smile on Impact** » Sat Dec 09, 2006 3:51 pm

flippo wrote: If you arent changing tempo turn 'em off.

so... how do you suppose one djs ?

a1studmuffin · Post by **a1studmuffin** » Sat Dec 09, 2006 9:47 pm

With pitch shifting, rather than time stretching. In case you haven't noticed, using master tempo on CDJs sounds pretty crap on the transients too.

Capo-wear-I · Post by **Capo-wear-I** » Sat Dec 09, 2006 10:39 pm

feelslikeafukinrevolution wrote:
flippo wrote:
unsoundbwoy wrote:but y'all are missing the point.
his track wasn't pitched.
it was just loaded in at normal pitch and then re-rendered dry.
yes, but were all the functions related to that disabled?
Then the main point:

WHY WOULD I USE ABLETON WITH THE FUNCTIONS DISABLED !!!

OK - I'll try again

Timestretching in realtime will always have an audible effect - whether it's timestrecthing in Ableton or pitchshifting on a CDJ . Why ?

Because the track needs to be split into tiny grains, analysed, then put back together. In the case of time-compressing it will leave out some of the grains. In time-stretching it will add some bits - and it's exactly how it adds these bits that determine the timestretching mode (or warp mode in ableton's case).

A CDJ will use quite a small buffer to timestretch (or pitchshift) with a fixed grain size- hence the 'chorusy' type of effect at extreme settings. A similar mode in Ableton would be Texture.

The most sucessful method of timestretching (off-line timestretching) involves the most data in the analysis (ie the most grains)- but this would involve waiting 20 minutes for the track to be stretched, and it would be a 'one off' process - you can't shift things in realtime using the best timestretching technology at the moment.

The process used by ableton is good trade off between speed and quality - sure there's scope for a better timestretch - but if its at the cost of being able to use it in a Live performance context, it won't find it's way into a program like Ableton.

The clue is in the title : Ableton LIVE !

And i'll say it again : use the re-pitch Mode because it doesn't involve any timestrecthing...

Smile on Impact · Post by **Smile on Impact** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 10:44 am

a1studmuffin wrote:With pitch shifting, rather than time stretching. In case you haven't noticed, using master tempo on CDJs sounds pretty crap on the transients too.

Yeah after a while..
but I would rate it 100% better than ableton for that.
And the sample i showed was at NORMAL TEMPO.

You can theorise about it all you want, but the point in case is that ableton dosn't sound that flash.

flippo · Post by **flippo** » Sun Dec 10, 2006 1:45 pm

feelslikeafukinrevolution wrote:
flippo wrote: If you arent changing tempo turn 'em off.
so... how do you suppose one djs ?

I thought we were talking about production. I thought you could hear people who have produced stuff with ableton (pendulum etc). I think pretty much any time stretching you do is going to munt the sound in some way. Anywhoo.