How does the Ableton warp algorithm work exactly? [closed]

Question

I'm looking for any documentation or definitive information on Ableton's warp feature. I understand that it has something to do with finding transients, aligning them with an even rhythm and shifting audio samples accordingly. I'm hoping to find ways to approximate warping with more basic audio editing tools.

I understand that this is ableton's unique device, really any information about how it works would be helpful.

So...does anyone have any 411?

Answer 1

The auto-warp feature in ableton live consists basically of two processing steps: detecting beats with an automatic beat detection algorithm and dynamically changing the tempo according to the beat information.

For the tempo detection, they licensed an older version of zplane aufTAKT.

ableton live offers several algorithms for time-stretching. Most of them work in the time domain (compare: overlap and add (OLA) algorithms). Two of them, "Complex" and "Complex Pro" are licensed from zplane as well (compare the zplane élastique algorithms). They are not time-domain algorithms. To learn more about frequency domain algorithms, "Phase Vocoder" would be the best google start. An excellent introduction to the theory of time stretching and pitch shifting can be found in Zölzer's DAFX book.