1) If I want to record vocal loops in my track, I have heard about this interesting warp feature.. Is there a way to select what Bpm I want it to be played back at or how to sync it with my 100 bpm drum loop?

2) In your opinion what is the coolest ableton hardware to own for creating music as well as doing 'live' stuff while djing.

 

1) Didn't get the question.
2) Push 2.

 

Try Complex Pro mode. Then use the metronome and you probably will have to correct the warpmarkers.

Push2 will do your DJ stuff.

 

gotchya.. Ableton is very different coming from FL but I am liking it so far.. Holy crap 800$ Better save up some Moolah

 

Ok I guess this is not exactly an ableton question about the vocal loop but in general when I record my own vocal loop how do I know what BPM it is recorded at? I've never tried doing any vocals and even messing around with vocals finding a BPM to a vocal is very confusing to me as I can easily pick a BPM out of drums but with vocals its much harder.

 

I had to sign up just to answer this question because it was bugging me. Basically if you want to record a vocal at a specific BPM, the best way to do that is by activating the metronome and sing/talk in time to the rhythm.

The person above said to use Complex Mode for warping vocals but actually that isn't recomended (as it is designed to take into account complex audio files i.e: whole mixes)

Allow me to explain the warp modes:

Beat: Pretty self explanatory, it is designed for warping drums and any percussive audio files.
Tones: Is designed for monophonic sounds i.e: bass, synth lead and clean vocals. Basically anynthing that is a mono source sound
Textures: This is designed for more complex audio files such as heavily reverberated-stereo piano sounds, drones or vocals that have a lot of processing on them. Basically anything that is stereo
Re-Pitch: Basically allows you to create re-pitch audio files based on markers.

In terms of finding the BPM of vocal that isn't yours... its really a question of trial and error. Some tips to put you in the right direction; first of all de-activate any warping, visually line up the starting point of the vocal to the grid and see how it lines up - after that tweak it with the metronome untill it 'feels' right. To be fair Ableton is usually pretty good at picking up on the original tempo of the file,

hope this helps

 

glad you dropped in Agro, feel free to stick around. on the warping vocals im only learning ableton myself, but sonars vocalign seems a lot more musical for stretching vocals. and on hardware, I couldn't afford a push2 so I picked up a apc40 mkII and I must say I am very happy with it. game changer for me

 

Hey Garf, thanks been lurking around the forums for ages! I couldn't find any info about Vocalign by Sonar, do you mean vocalSync? Based on what see video wise of VocalSync, I don't know if I'd say its more musical but it does seem to be more flexible in terms of helping you align vocals with another track. Thing is, Ableton Live has always been a 'stripped down' DAW. That is to say that you are presented with a lightweight software that doesn't need too much learning.
Personally I've always found programs like Logic, FL and Cubase a bit intimidating because they offer so much in terms of options. That said I do sometimes miss these additional options.

Edit: once thing I wanted to say about that VocalSync is that it sounded a bit 'grainy' (based on what I saw) not sure if I'm a fan of the algorithm - kind of annoying that you can select different models.

Hardware wise, I'm lucky enough to own a Push 1 & 2 - In terms of hardware that integrates perfectly with Live you can't beat Push of course (not to mention that now P2 has the full colour screen its wonderful to look at - although some things are still missing from it like being able to see inside of midiclips from Live - but some people are working on Max devices that fix that) but yeah all the Akai-Live products get the job down as well as the Launchpad options - at the end of the day it depends what your looking for in terms of hardware add-on for Live, but the APC40 is defo a solid bit of kit - just that there was a mkII as well - which one did you get?

 

Last edited: Feb 6, 2016

so you record vocals with no click, right? then you d need to find the bpm, well use the click and try to see what bpm it is more or less, then stretch the vocals to match the bpm. Tone mode I d say, not complex mode, Hi-Q switch on