Warpler (a Sampler with warp / time-stretching)

[antic604]

One thing I was surprised to see missing in Bitwig coming from Ableton is time-stretching (warping) options in sampler. This makes the device totally useless for most of the uses, in particular to resample resource-heavy VSTs and create multi-sample instruments out of them.

However, watching some videos on Bitwig's modulators (this one in particular) I came up with this simple idea to work around it. It's far from perfect: works only in range of +/- 1 octave and the quality depends on the sounds used, but it's better than not having it at all.

Basically:
- set the Sampler to not follow the note keys (the piano icon in top left),
- add a Key Tracking modulator to the Sampler, set it up as Relative with Spread of 12,
- make sure that both Sampler and Key Tracking have the same note as a base/root, e.g. C3,
- put the Pitch Shifter in Sampler's FX and modulate its Pitch knob by the output of the Key Tracking,
- adjust the Grain on Pitch Shifter to your liking, although I find the default value of 10kHz (I think?) to sound the best.

I hope the above is pretty much self-explanatory, but if not I'll post a screenshot in the evening.

This way the Sampler will now play your sound +/- 1 octave around the root note in response to your keyboard, changing the pitch accordingly but at a constant speed

[antic604]

Here's the screenshot of the device:

[antic604]

No feedback? I thought this is cool, even if low quality. But maybe it is an obvious thing to do

[JohannesTress]

Pretty interesting! But it is August after all... I check your preset asap! Thank you in advance.

[h2ogun99]

Sorry for the delay. I've been meaning to comment.

Very cool! I'll build per your instructions later this evening. Thank you for sharing.

L

[antic604]

Thanks! Yes, it works in some cases but quickly falls apart - quality wise - in others. I guess the main problem is that this works only on samples (grains) currently in the buffer and stretches them, whereas 'proper' warping takes into account also 'future' grains and maybe even more of them than just the neighbouring one and actually interpolates the 'missing' bits, therefore being able to produce much nicer result.

Here's hoping for real warp/stretch in next Bitwig versions. It's really needed!

[Taika-Kim]

"Quality" is relative in sound design. I'm sure the creation has a sound of it's own, useful for some purposes and useless for others.