Help a lady: Wave out recording pitch slow

[ministryofmind]

Hello everyone, I'm recording something playing through my soundcard in the normal 44.1, stereo, option. It doesn't matter what format I encode/record into, monkey, mp3, wav, it all comes out sounding slow. The pitch is wrong so that the recording is an extra 1/5th longer than it should be.

I searched the forum for similar problems but most of them were unanswered. I'm using winamp to playback the files but other applications report the same results. I suppose I could try to find a plugin or a stand alone application that will convert the pitch or frequency of the recordings, but I really would like to see a solution to this problem. Seeing as how I can't record above the frequency in the aux input program, what hopefully could be a solution, isn't.

I'm running a 2.8ghz machine with half a gig of memory and the system is operating at 1/2 its capacity during recording. The source of the recording is streaming audio.

dMC is version 11 and I'm running XP. Please help a lady in distress.

- Bunny

[adaywayne]

Re: Help a lady: Wave out recording pitch slow

I assume you are using DMC Auxilliary Input to record the streaming audio?. Physically, it is impossible for the recording to be at the wrong speed, so the problem must be in playback. If you hover your mouse pointer over the recorded file, what does it tell you about the size and duration of that file? Does it look correct, i.e. is it the same length as the recording time?

[ministryofmind]

Re: Help a lady: Wave out recording pitch slow

It tells me the length of the recording is 7:59 when it should be only 7:18. The size of the recording corresponds to that as well. I'm not so sure that it is impossible to be recording it wrong, as it seems the creation of the recording it self is at fault. Now that I look at it, the "time elapsed" looks funky during recording, it seems to be going way too fast.

Please help!!

Edit: Also, the compression is at 2.2:1 or 43% when it's recorded to ape that sounds odd to me, is that right?

- Bunny

[Spoon]

Re: Help a lady: Wave out recording pitch slow

Creating an mp3 file?

[ministryofmind]

Re: Help a lady: Wave out recording pitch slow

No. Any file would do. As you can see from my first post I've tried a lot of formats. Any help would be appreciated.

- Bunny

[ministryofmind]

Re: Help a lady: Wave out recording pitch slow

Minor correction to what I said before: The recording time ticker operates fine. It's the COMPRESSION window in the background that says convert file 1 of 1 to ape form that says more than 20 seconds have passed than how many seconds it has actually been.

It doesn't matter what compression format I'm trying it in (this is recording in to ape by the way), high, fast, normal, it all ticks 20 seconds faster during the compression.

[ministryofmind]

Re: Help a lady: Wave out recording pitch slow

Well uh, thanks for the ... help I guess. I still haven't figured out what's wrong but I seem to have fixed it.

For other people who might have this problem in the future, Record in wav and don't mess with the compression formats, I unbubbled "compressed" and after the recording I convert it to a more compressed format. This seems to work. Any other formats and I hit up with the same problem.

Someone's insight would still be appreciated. Otherwise I'm going to just drop off the face of the planet now.

- Bunny

[Craze]

Re: Help a lady: Wave out recording pitch slow

Have you tried changing to a different bitrate for your conversions?

[ministryofmind]

Re: Help a lady: Wave out recording pitch slow

But the bitrate shouldn't change anything because A) I'm recording in wav now, there's no compression but the problem persists, or at least, half of the time my wav files are still 20 seconds too long and playback sounds like it's in slow-mo. B) Conversion to any format, including ape or mp3 in any bitrate preserves the problem. C) I don't understand why everyone assumes I'm recording or converting into an mp3.

Problem persists ... the light is getting dim ... tell mother I'm sorry ... rosebud ...

- Bunny

[ChristinaS]

Re: Help a lady: Wave out recording pitch slow

Well uh, thanks for the ... help I guess. I still haven't figured out what's wrong but I seem to have fixed it.

For other people who might have this problem in the future, Record in wav and don't mess with the compression formats, I unbubbled "compressed" and after the recording I convert it to a more compressed format. This seems to work. Any other formats and I hit up with the same problem.

Someone's insight would still be appreciated. Otherwise I'm going to just drop off the face of the planet now.

- Bunny

Record to uncompressed, regular, ordinary, vanilla flavored 16-bit, 44.1KHz, 2-channel stereo PCM WAV. This is what I've been advocating since the dawn of time in order to avoid problems, especially with the quality of the results.

If it should turn out that the compression specs weren't ideal, what will you do? Record from the beginning! A waste of time, and sometimes you cannot even do it if it's streaming media form the web which may not come back. Or if you did a bunch of these recordings, didn't go back to listen to them, and now no longer have the originals to redo.

To come back to your problem, if you try to record to different formats you have to keep in mind the same limitations you'd have if you were converting from the above-mentioned .wav type to that same format you picked, as regards frequencies, bits, and channels. Some combinations either get rejected, or may result in faulty or weird files like what you got: too fast, too slow, etc.

If your recorded wav files are longer than the originals the only thing that makes sense is that you are allowing the recordign to go longer by either or both starting it befoer you're playing the file and ending it after the file has finished playing.it's hard to time it all exactly. But what is recroded ought to sound the same was what was being played from which you recorded. You are recording "WHAT YOU HEAR", though it may have a bit of silence at the start and at the end. Even if you use the auto start and stop settings (which I'd no recommend until you know exactly what you're doing and are sure of the input).

Another thing, if you're using the Smart track option, don't. This is what may well be messing up your speed as well.

[ministryofmind]

Re: Help a lady: Wave out recording pitch slow

Thank you for the insight. I have been recording in good old fashioned, uncompressed, PCM, wav in the specs that you mentioned. It is still sometimes coming out slow, the length of which can be attributed to lengthening of the recording because of it being drawn out and thus, sounding slow during playback. It is neither the seconds before nor after the recording that's causing the recording to be 20 seconds longer. I'm not using the smart track options as I'd just edit out the few seconds before and after the recording in sound recorder. Playback in any player sounds slow and the file size/length is also more than it should be. I have tried recording in all other formats as well, but this is the recommended way and to me the most logical way of getting a lossless recording.

I repeat once more that the pitch difference happens in the ORIGINAL, UNCOMPRESSED, UNCONVERTED, PCM, 16BIT, 44.1, STEREO recording. Conversion doesn't help nor worsen the effects of the recording.

I would still appreciate if someone knows what's causing this.

- Bunny
- Bunny

[ChristinaS]

Re: Help a lady: Wave out recording pitch slow

Burn the recorded wav file to a cd (as data not as audio) and take it to another pc and play it and see if it's still playing wrong.

[Smoggy]

Re: Help a lady: Wave out recording pitch slow

Thank you for the insight. I have been recording in good old fashioned, uncompressed, PCM, wav in the specs that you mentioned. It is still sometimes coming out slow, the length of which can be attributed to lengthening of the recording because of it being drawn out and thus, sounding slow during playback. It is neither the seconds before nor after the recording that's causing the recording to be 20 seconds longer. I'm not using the smart track options as I'd just edit out the few seconds before and after the recording in sound recorder. Playback in any player sounds slow and the file size/length is also more than it should be. I have tried recording in all other formats as well, but this is the recommended way and to me the most logical way of getting a lossless recording.

I repeat once more that the pitch difference happens in the ORIGINAL, UNCOMPRESSED, UNCONVERTED, PCM, 16BIT, 44.1, STEREO recording. Conversion doesn't help nor worsen the effects of the recording.

I would still appreciate if someone knows what's causing this.

- Bunny
- Bunny

Do you have all the latest Sound card and DirectX drivers?
Re installing them might be worth a shot too.
You could also try moving your sound card to a different slot.

[ministryofmind]

Re: Help a lady: Wave out recording pitch slow

I transfered the recording in wav format via a flash drive to a different computer and the playback pitch is still slow.

I'm pretty sure smoggy has the right mind set in terms of what's wrong, I think my sound card is having problems integrating itself in the recording process. Upon checking the driver status it is from 1980 so I am just now updating it. I'm sure my DirectX drivers are up to date though.

I'll keep you all posted (because everbody cares about my dinky problems.)

- Bunny

[ChristinaS]

Re: Help a lady: Wave out recording pitch slow

1980???? is this an Atari? JK :D

Ok, joking aside, what sound card is it? 16-bit or 8-bit? does it support full-duplex?

Some of the very old soundcards may not be able to handle all these things properly at all.