Fl Studio: problem matching sample's tempo

T

Tomasmk

New member
Hello, I'm having a very frustrating problem, hope you can help.

I'm making a beat using samples from a song. One of the samples is to repeat itself, it is the loop that plays throughout most of the song. The other one is the chorus, which is to play three times during the song.

The thing is, after chopping the original song into this two samples using edison, and exporting them to new files, I bring them back to Fl Studio.

Then I double click the loop sample time stretching menu---> time knob---->4 bars, so as to make it match the drums. All good untill here (hope you've managed to follow me)

The problem is, now the loop has been set to a tempo which is different to the one in the chorus! so when the chorus plays, its completely out of sync with the rest.

How could I find out to what tempo has the loop been set and then force the chorus sample to be set to that same tempo?
 
The length and tempo of a loop always go hand in hand, that is to say one always determines the other, when you understand and work around this fact you have a distinct advantage over those who don't.

What I do is use a stopwatch to determine the tempo of the source material, you can use tap tempo but it's set up to time from beat to beat which is more idiot prof than accurate and although it determines tempos from lengths tap tempo doesn't display them because like I said it's set up so idiots can just tap from beat to beat instead of say the duration of a bar, the other advantage to using the stopwatch is that you can figure shit out without having to open your DAW just so you can use tap tempo.

60 / seconds x beats = BPM

For example, 60 / 2.526 sec x 4 beats = 95 BPM
 
There's this tutorial by warbeats on youtube, on how to sync a sample to the tempo of the project. Just go to his channel and search there (I'm at work, without access to youtube to get you the direct link). It's one of the best tutorials on the subject I've ever found.
 
OK, first things first, you do not have to export sample chops in edison and re-import them back into FL, simply drag the highlighted loop into the step sequencer using the drag/copy tool in Edison.
Next, I'm assuming that the loop is 4 bars (since that's what you switch the time knob to) and the chorus must be 8 bars, in which case the tempo's would definitely not match because you are time stretching two samples of DIFFERENT LENGTHS, the solution would be to split the chorus into two equal 4 bar chops, apply the 4 bar time knob stretch to both of them, and use an 8 bar pattern, use the first chorus chop on the first downbeat, then the second chorus chop on the second downbeat
 
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Software often uses the same basic formula that I just showed you, so if you feed it the wrong information it will definitely screw things up (garbage in, garbage out) even more so when you consider that any error is going to get stretched too.

I know a lot of cats recoil when I mention using a stopwatch and math but it really does kick ass, mind you any technique which effectively uses length to determine tempo or tempo to determine length is fine too, but without understanding the relationship between the two most people tend to just stumble upon a technique that works and those who are unlucky simply become frustrated.
 
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