How do I beatmatch a sample with inconsistent tempo?

  • Thread starter Thread starter elpm
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elpm

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My Background:
I have been making beats with Fruity Loops and Acid for about a year and I have a few years experience as a bedroom DJ.

My Problem:
Many of my favorite old songs to sample do not have a consistent tempo throughout the song, and I am having trouble determining how to sample them.

For example, there is one particular song I'm chopping up that has a 2-bar intro I really like, and want to use as the basis for a beat. The second bar has a faster and less consistent tempo than the first, and I'm having trouble matching it up with tightly-beatmatched drums. Additionally, the song is even faster after these opening bars, making it difficult to arrange the whole beat and introducting additional digital distortion.

My Questions for You:
What strategies and techniques do I use to make this easier?

Do I keep the whole song beatmatched to one BPM and perform meticulous chopping on the song (e.g. make every 1/8th hi-hat robotically correct)

Do I chop up the song according to "consistent bars" and individually beatmatch consistent sections? (E.g. bar 1 is X bpm and bar 2 is Y bpm.)

(Do I use a combination of these techniques?)

I'm only vaguely familiar with the concepts of "quantization" and "swing," how do these play into what I'm talking about? (And, in particular, regarding FL Studio and Acid.)

If anyone can point me to old threads with related information, I would be grateful. Thanks!
 
In acid: beatmap the track, duplicate it, on the duplicate of it go to clip properties and change the tempo up or down until u see the peak(kick) on the wave line up with the beat. If you cant see where the kick is on the wave use your ears. If it goes off again duplicate the duplicate and change the tempo and so on.
 
~X~ said:
In acid: beatmap the track, duplicate it...
Click to expand...

That's what I've been doing, but it's pretty clunky. I don't like having a single song spread accross 5-10 tracks.

Isn't there a better way? Other software, vsts, ???
 
elpm said:
That's what I've been doing, but it's pretty clunky. I don't like having a single song spread accross 5-10 tracks.

Isn't there a better way? Other software, vsts, ???
Click to expand...


i HEARD that one of abletons software has drift correction. Other than that there is no other way, what I usually do is what i told you then i put it in a folder, minimize, then bounce it to a new track. Gotta make sure the correction is perfect though cuz u dont wanna go back and fourth fixing things.
 
chop up based on the beat you hear, then rearrange on your piano roll
 
Abletons warping!

I just switched to ableton and good lord, having a DAW this powerful is mind blowing... I feel like the Program was sonin' me the first few days (it so was) but yea ableton suite/live 8.1.3's warping is ridiculous there is nothing u can't lock to a grid and make it sound natural. The song could have no time stamp what so ever and guaranteed If your warp game is solid you can get it locked on beat in a few seconds.
 
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Ableton sounds sexy. I'm getting pretty tired of my same ol' routine in FL.

Personally I would just chop up the sample and time stretch each individual part.
 
The way I would flip this is to play the whole sample through at a composite bpm. Something like bpm1+bpm2/2, cut the quantizing off and go hard with playing your overlays. If you have a sample funky enough to have a tempo change it'd be a damn shame to grid it up. Even if you don't end up with a perfect product timing-wise it's good training for situations where your timing need not be robotically accurate.
 
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