Getting clean chops in Recycle.

S

StylesAndFlavor

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Its been hit or miss for me, somtimes my chops are good and sometimes they dont line up.

How do yall get good exact chops in recycle. Lately ive been getting dope samples but when I go to make the beat the snares and such arent lining up and Im doing the best I can just free handing the chops in Recycle.

Any specific way you guys get good exact chops in recycle?
 
Not lining up is mostly a problem of timing. Starting off with a perfect 4, 8, or 16 bar loop saves you a lot of problems. Then with that loop, zoom in a lot and chop where the wave crosses the 0db line. Forgot the exact term of that point.
 
The two most common causes of misalignment are 1. the timing of the source material and 2. attributing an incorrect tempo to the source material.
 
Are you using the chop slider or are you chopping manually. I do not recommend using the slider unless you are chopping drum loops.
 
Even for drumloops it get's fuzzy sometimes. Depend on how clear and/or difficult your drum loops are. Cutting manually is imo the best way.
 
What I do first is find out the tempo and the correct corresponding length of the loop which is half the battle because if the two values (BPM and length) are mismatched the beats will be skewed. Once I have a proper loop I can then check it against the grid in ReCycle, which will give me an accurate indication of the original timing, if the timing is all over the place I can then take the appropriate action.
 
I chop all my stuff manually. It gets frustrating when I got something good but the snares arent lining up but Im doing the best I can. Sometimes Its goes just right other times it just wont match up no matter how many times I go back and try. I do most of my chops in 4 or 8 bars unless Im going random dj premier style chops.

I feel like sometimes its a more of the source being not exactly on point rather than my chops.

---------- Post added at 09:40 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:35 AM ----------

I feel like im probably skipping steps in chopping though. I just load up a song and get to chopping, hit preview type in 4, take the stretch off and then save.

Are there other things I should be doing every time I chop?

I appreciate all the responses.
 
If your slices are long enough to retain any portion of the original tempo then you must accurately match the tempo to your project or it will not line up.

BPM and length are inseparable values, if you get one value wrong you also get the other value wrong, so if your length is wrong ReCycle will also give you the wrong tempo based on the wrong length you have selected between the two locators, and the end result will be a sample that will be skewed in relation to your project's tempo.

If your sample's transients don't line up with the ReCycle grid and you know you have both the correct tempo and corresponding length, then it's not going to line up with your project grid and it can be assumed that the original timing is not at all perfect, this is why it's important to know how to accuracy detect a tempo and make a proper loop (as opposed to dragging two locators around until shit sounds like it's looping properly when it's not because you have no point of reference other than what you are messing with) now there are ways to pull shit into line but it helps if you understand why shit works the way it does first.

I can teach you the most accurate techniques for determining a songs tempo as well as teach you how to make a proper loop, that is if your not afraid of some basic math.
 
Alright then....In order to determine the beats per minute (BPM) of a track what you want to do is time a measure of music with a stopwatch and then calculate the BPM based of the duration of that measure, by the way that is exactly how tap tempo works, however tap tempo tends to be set up to work by timing beats as opposed to bars and thus tends to be less accurate, you can however use it to time bars and simply multiply the resulting BPM thus improving the accuracy........multiplying and dividing is quite an important concept to get your head around especially when dealing with certain software as it allows you to do things like change the grid resolution in programs like ReCycle from 16ths to 8ths etc.

Now just like using tap tempo you will need a sense of rhythm when using a stopwatch and it really helps if you count out loud, just be sure to avoid cutting bars short by hitting stop when you count "4" instead of when you hit the next "1", ideally you want to time bars rather than beats because as you divide you reduce the timing errors you would otherwise get from beat to beat timing, now you might be wondering why, if you can use tap tempo more accurately by multiplying the results would you want to even bother using a stopwatch and calculator, and there are two very good reasons, first the stopwatch gives you a reading of your loop length and second, by understanding the math you can see shit just like Neo looking at the Matrix and seeing past the code.

Now about that red pill.........

Lets say you time 1 bar with your stopwatch and you get a reading of 2.526 seconds, this would be the calculation, 60seconds/2.526seconds(=23.75seconds)x4beats=95 bpm.......

60 seconds is equal to 1 minute as in beats per "minute".
2.526 seconds is the reading from the stopwatch.
(=23.75seconds) you can just ignore that shit.
4 beats is equal to 1 bar........8 beats would be 2 bars and so on.

Any questions?
 
hey man I appreciate it. Ive got a good grip on finding BPM. Just trying to find the most accurate way to chop in Recycle.
 
Once you can work out the correct BPM and corresponding length you can apply the grid (to sections) and figure out how the original timing of each slice is going to sit in relation to the grid you have in your DAW, that's the trick right there, you can chop as accurately as you like in ReCycle but if one of your slices is large enough to contain timing elements that does not adhere to the timing (not to be confused with BPM) of your project grid then that shit is just not going to line up regardless of how accurately you chopped it, you get what what I am saying? it's not about chopping accurately at all, it's about having the ability to manipulate the timing to fit your vision should shit not line up, unfortunately ReCycle is a bit of a blunt instrument that lacks the sophistication of a decent audio editor in terms of being able to manipulate individual elements, like if I want to shift a snare in the middle of a slice I can do it by subtracting time from one side and adding it back to the other without inadvertently creating five individually small slices that would require sequencing, I can just manipulate that shit in any decent audio editor and glue it back together and play it as single slice that works in relation to the grid, mind you it helps if you know how to work with time as opposed to just dragging shit around at random with the mouse.
 
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