Best way to make lyrics track for variable tempo “songs”?
I work for a wedding/corporate event band and we recently made the switch to Ableset. We love everything about it! The only issue for us is making lyrics. We do mashups, and each one of our “sets” vary in tempo, ranging from 8 minutes to some as long as 26 minutes straight through. While making the lyrics using the tool on Ableset’s website, I realized the limitation with BPM since we can only enter one BPM for the entire track.
All of our tracks are bounced through and warp is disabled, so it would be a hassle to re-warp and tempo match to a single tempo, then dewarp back. We have 9 audio trax and about 6 hours of music, so this would be a huge task! When using the Lyrics tool, I always had to re-align a majority of the lyrics afterwards. Our tempos vary pretty drastically sometimes so most of the time using the lyric tool doesn’t help at all.
Any tips?
Hey @buckzetaracker, welcome to the forum!
Really glad you’re enjoying AbleSet! Let me explain what’s happening and a couple of ways around it.
Llyrics are just MIDI clips on a track, one clip per line, where each clip’s start and length decide when the line shows. At the moment the Lyrics Track Generator builds those clips against a single, constant BPM, so the moment your mashup changes tempo the clips drift and you end up re-aligning everything by hand. The tool doesn’t currently read variable tempo, so with tempo changes there’s going to be a compromise either way. Two paths:
Option 1 — Keep using the generator
For the songs with tempo automation, bounce your tracks with the tempo changes baked in, a click track and your stems rendered out through the automation. You’ll lose tempo automation in your Live session for that song, but you’ll be able to sync your lyrics against that reference in the tool. Then just drag the generated track into your project.
Option 2 — Keep your Live project exactly as-is
If you’d rather not touch your tempo automation (fair enough with your track count), skip the tool’s sync step. Still use the generator to create the raw clips and just grab the unsynced lyrics. Then drag them in, and position each clip manually against your actual audio in the timeline. More hands-on, but nothing in your project changes.
Since your tracks aren’t warped, you’ve actually got a bit more freedom here.
Would that work for your use case?
Option 2 will be our only option unfortunately. We use midi tracks for our click (in case we ever want to change the sound or division on the fly). These need to be connected to project tempo. I was hoping I could use an LRC generator since that uses time as its sync, but because of the global tempo, it still didn’t line up. If only their was some sort of warp for midi clips where it stretches based on global tempo!
Are there any plans to add variable tempo to the lyrics generator or have a reference click element?
Hey @buckzetaracker,
Variable tempo support in the lyrics generator is a solid use case and I’ll pass it along 
Can’t promise a timeline on if/when it’d get added, but it’s noted!
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Appreciated. Thanks for your help!
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If I can jump in this thread, another option would be to export your medley in separate sections (let’s say bar 1 to 45 for first song, tempo changes at bar 45. Export bar 45 to bar 116 etc.
Import and export one by one in the lyric generator (input the right tempo there for each section) and import them one by one at the right measure in Ableton. Worked for my use case. Not sure if that makes sense.
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Funny enough, I just thought of that a few hours ago. Thats a good workaround for now, that way I’m not having to readjust the timing again. Cut down on about 30% of the work.
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