Tempo Mapping Multitrack Drums in Ableton Live

[@JeremyPowerGuitar]

DUDE! You have no idea how grateful I am for this video! This is exactly what I’ve been trying to work out for ages. Thank you so much

[@ErikHawk]

Awesome, glad it helped! Thanks for watching.

[@kursesandkarma3224]

You give the details and I appreciate that. Many other vid/tut's just rush to the point and leave out the "must-do first". Cheers!

[@ErikHawk]

Glad it was helpful! Thanks for watching and commenting.

[@tholos6630]

I think that might've been just what I needed.

[@bharathj63]

This is a game changer for film scoring!

[@ErikHawk]

Totally! Thanks for watching 🙏

[@tablaninja]

Thank you SO MUCH! I've been looking for hours to figure this out...

[@ErikHawk]

Glad I could help!

[@DavidBichoHasBeard]

I pop in a question barely related to this, but anyhow! I saw this guy on youtube creating a midi track where he manually metronoming through a song, and then did something I didn't payed attention to and up popped a window where he selected if his midi-tempotrack was in 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 followed by a OK-click. And voila. He got an automated tempo-curve based on his manual midi. I have never found the youtube clip again, and no one understands what the hell I am talking or asking about - but maybe there is someone here who does since there's obviously a lot of tempo-nerds here :).

[@ErikHawk]

MIDI Map Live's Tempo field to a knob on your MIDI controller. Then, when you're recording in the Arrangement View, turn your MIDI knob and you'll be able to write a manual tempo automation curve on the Master tempo automation track. Hope this helps.

[@gersonlarios3043]

thank you!!!

[@ErikHawk]

You're welcome. Thanks for watching and commenting.

[@neutrinou]

You literally saved my day!

[@ErikHawk]

Awesome! Glad the video was helpful.

[@leescanlan4995]

Thanks for that. It’s cool that the Tempo map thing is possible. But it would be cool if Ableton implemented in a more obvious way, like it’s done in Studio One for instance

[@ErikHawk]

Well, Ableton always has to do things in a unique way!

[@meriembenamor]

This is totally awesome!! Thank you.

[@ErikHawk]

You're very welcome! Thanks so much for commenting.

[@alancheatham981]

Thanks exactly what I needed!

[@ErikHawk]

Awesome! Glad to know that it helped.

[@JeremyToy]

thank you this was super helpful and very clear!

[@ErikHawk]

Glad it was helpful! Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment.

[@demezzerate6769]

LMFAO IVE BEEN WARPING MY DRUMS WRONG THE WHOLE TIME. i’ve just been highlighting all of the tracks and then edit the overhead since it’s catching the whole kit. that part alone is already game changing 💀

[@ErikHawk]

This video is about tempo mapping not warping. You can absolutely select multiple tracks in the Arrangement View and warp them to Live's fixed Master Tempo, but that isn't tempo mapping it's tempo correcting your drums to a fixed tempo. Tempo mapping is making Live's Master tempo follow the tempo of a live recording that was not played to a click track. So, to be clear, from the start these are completely opposite objectives.

[@lmclrain]

thanks for the video, this was quite useful

[@ErikHawk]

Glad it was helpful! Thanks for watching and commenting.

[@kevinldaniel]

Thank you for this 😭 I'd honestly purchase you coffee if you had a link up or something lol

[@ErikHawk]

Thank you! That is a great idea, I'll need to sign up for that service and add a link here. I'll keep you posted. More coffee never hurts! :-)

[@ErikHawk]

I did it! :-) www.buymeacoffee.com/erikhawkmusic

[@officialmatthiasroder]

Great video, thanks! I have a question about midi tracks. Suppose I work on the drums like you do in your video and then I add a midi track and play some synth notes (on the grid. Will they also be playing along with the time map of the kick drum?

[@ErikHawk]

Yes. Just make sure that if the kick is the Leader (and you haven't transferred its tempo map to the master yet), that your MIDI tracks are above the kick in your track list.

[@JashJhaveri]

Thanks for this, been trying to find a way to replicated the beatmapping function in logic for ableton. Is there a way i can do this with midi, i.e. play out a midi sequence and then warp the master tempo to the timing of my midi notes, instead of another way around? Otherwise i guess i'd just have to bounce the midi to audio and do this. Switched over to ableton from logic recently. Again, thank you for this! Subscribed

[@ErikHawk]

Great question. There's no way to do this since a MIDI track can't be a Warp Lead track. So, yeah, you'd need to convert your MIDI performance to audio, than you could tempo map the audio track.

[@JashJhaveri]

@@ErikHawk I guess I'ma have to do that then! Thanks again!

[@rossbickerstaff8376]

Great video! I was wondering though for running a live show where I would want to tempo map stems to a click, does the tempo map on the master still work once the clips have been pulled into session view? I know with drum pad automation for instance I have to drag that clip over for example. Hope you know what I mean! Thanks!

[@ErikHawk]

Good question. If you have a Song Tempo map automated in the Arrangement View and then you switch to Session View and press Play, the tempo map will still be active. However, a clip can't be a Tempo Leader in the Session View. So, after you tempo map the clip in the Arrangement View, you'll need to right-click on the tempo display and from the pop-up select Unfollow Tempo Automation. Then I think you can do what you want, if I understand your question correctly.

[@ulricaluo2442]

nice video. i wonder why not make the tempo changes more obvious so that the demonstration can felt more clearly

[@ErikHawk]

Good question. But I think you might be confusing tempo changes for an arrangement with tempo mapping an already existing beat. Yes, for tempo changes in an arrangement I would make them more dramatic. This demonstration is for tempo mapping a beat that was played and recorded without a click track.

[@zericew]

Thanks I am thinking of doing a cover of an old rock song with natural tempo variations and I figured hey why not make it the exact same tempo haha. This is exactly what I needed. I see logic has "beat mapping" and Studio One was mentioned in the thread too. Im wondering if those offer more automated features than ableton, but also wondering if maybe putting in the manual work in ableton yields better results. Guess I could figure out myself because I have Logic too but just throwing it out there if anyone has opinions cause I switched to abelton a while back and not to interested in re acquainting myself with Logic just to do this haha

[@zericew]

ok last add-on... tried doing it manually measure by measure and Im hearing time stretch artifacts pop upon random places. Then I noticed I had it on "Beats - preserve transients". so I switched to complex pro, and, if there is artifacts, they are pretty minor cause it sounds pretty good like no warping is happening. The video has it set on complex. Is complex better than complex pro for this purpose? Also inst it weird that beats has artifacts in the first place? theoretically shouldn't it not stretch at all since this is the the lead tempo mapping track? sorry if this is already discussed in vid but I dont think it is.

[@ErikHawk]

Yes, it's discussed in the video... As in, you're not warping the clip that you're tempo mapping. Import the track that you want to tempo map. Make sure that when you import it that it's not Warp enabled. There's a Preference you can set to not auto warp long samples. If it's warped when it comes into Live it will be conforming to your session's current tempo and this is not the objective. Then, making sure that it's not warped, enable it to become the Warp Lead track. Now you can tempo map it and it won't be warped. Hope this helps.

[@stefanbregenzer]

Great video, thanks! Just for understanding: Let's say I do this like shown but also have a guitar and a bass track. If I put those two under the Tempo Lead track they would not be affected by the warping?

[@ErikHawk]

Anything under the Leader will follow the master tempo, which is following the Leader track. Yeah, it's totally weird. So, what I do after I've created the tempo map on the Leader track is to transfer the tempo map back to the session's master tempo. I'm going to demonstrate how to do this in the next video. I'll have it up in the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned.

[@creativesoundmusic]

@@ErikHawk Did you ever make that second video? I can't find anything like that in your uploads. This video was so helpful, I've wanted to do tempo mapping for years since leaving ProTools and didn't think I could. So this video was perfect. But I'm curious about this second video you mention here.

[@1176hambone]

Nice feature. But, the visual display is deceptive as it looks like quantizing. The timeline should be moving rather than the waveform. This very subject screws up so many people across many DAWS.

[@ErikHawk]

I totally agree. Thanks for watching and commenting.

[@jesseelledge2284]

Can this be used as a way to record with a live feeling? My band needs a click for live purposes but playing to the click changes the feel of the song.

[@ErikHawk]

Try Live's Tempo Following feature. help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/articles/360019100900-Tempo-Following-FAQ

[@jesseelledge2284]

@@ErikHawk thanks for such a quick and helpful response!!

[@jersonniampira1199]

Hi, is possible to export this variable tempo as a clip in to another project?

[@ErikHawk]

Apparently not. You can export a clip as a MIDI file, but not the tempo map, nor the whole song as a .mid file. There's a silly workaround on the Ableton site, but it's certainly not a simple, nor elegant solution. help.ableton.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000046760-Extracting-a-Tempo-Map-from-Live#:~:text=Create%20an%20empty%20MIDI%20clip,file%20to%20the%20other%20DAW.

[@jersonniampira1199]

@@ErikHawk 😥i want my warping organic session as a default template

[@pinkpalmsmusic]

I always made the mistake of setting the follow tracks to warp ON as well, because i thought it is a direct leader - follower (master - slave) relationship between those tracks. but it seems it does not work like that. it's not really like the other tracks follow the leader. it is more like setting a master track with warp ON changes the playback speed for the whole project, and the speed changes are generated from the warp markers of the leader track. I imagine it a bit like when you change the underlying speed of the "tape playback" of the whole project. the side effect of that is that all the other tracks now get played faster / slower to match the master track. nice. but why do they do this so unintuitive?

[@ErikHawk]

When the Leader is enabled no warping is taking place. Instead it's a tempo map. I know it looks like the waveforms are being warped, but if the other tracks aren't warped enabled they're literally just sitting there. Then, Ableton's tempo grid is following your Leader track. It's anything but intuitive.

[@tomallonsmusicalcreation1111]

Hi and thanks but ! I can’t understand why every time you added an anchor point (transient marker) you snap it left and right 4:10. Doesn’t doing that just snapping it to the original bar and killing the natural feel ?

[@ErikHawk]

Yeah, that's what it looks like but that's not what's happening. I explained this exact misconception in the video. With the Warp Leader enabled, you're actually moving the tempo ruler, not the waveform. You're snapping the tempo ruler to the transients, not the other way around. It's like you're warping the tempo ruler. It's totally counter intuitive.

[@tomallonsmusicalcreation1111]

@@ErikHawk thanks for this ! Might worth putting this sentence “warping the tempo ruler using the leader” in description as disclaimer as I watched this video so many times and couldn’t quite understand that this what it does . Any way I’m trying to tempo map a full production and am failing every time it just doesn’t work for me Is it supposed to work on a whole production or will only work with a beat Thanks

[@ErikHawk]

@@tomallonsmusicalcreation1111 Technically you're not warping the tempo track, but rather just moving the tempo markers to match the transients in your Warp Leader track. Yes, it can work on all the tracks in your Session view. However, a couple of very important details to remember: 1) the Warp Lead track must be at the bottom of your track list in the Session View. 2) the other tracks above the Warp Lead track must not be Warp enabled. (Because if they are they're not following the Lead track.) Hope this helps. It is a technically challenging and mind warping operation, ha. Good luck.

[@tomallonsmusicalcreation1111]

Thanks again ! I would like to be able to turn warp on the other tracks after I finish to map the tempo so I can be able to further edit and actually use the new tempo map to actually quantise it What do you say about that ? How can I achieve that ?

[@ErikHawk]

@@tomallonsmusicalcreation1111 Yes, after you map your Lead track, do this: 1) right-click on the master tempo field (to the left of the Tap button) and select Unfollow Tempo Automation. 2) select all of your other clips, the ones that you haven't enabled warp and enable warp. The order here is very important. Now, the Master track has its own tempo map, and all of the other tracks in your session will be beat matched to this tempo map and follow along with your changes. Good luck.

[@jakobbarger1260]

It seems like this doesn't work with MIDI, unlike with other DAWs. Very weird constraint. I'm sort of regretting jumping into Ableton