Can you guys help my buddy.....?

Bass Master "K"

Bass Master "K"

New member
My friend doesn't have a lot of money, but he wanted to see what computer recording was all about so he got his hands on a legitamate copy of Cakewalk 9.0, I know it's a bit old, but it was cheap. So I went to his place and helped him set it up and for the last two months he has been in recording heaven.

Well, he's not exactly a computer guy, and somehow he has clicked on something or changed a setting so that this odd behavior happens and I'm hoping you guys can help...I'm a Cubase user and I just spent the last two hours trying to find a solution and I don't see what is going on.

Problem: He lays down a drum track onto one track using his mixer and some mics...so far so good. Then he records a guitar track. Upon playback, it STARTS in perfect time with the drums but then the guitar part seems to speed up a little bit at a time so that within a few bars it's a whole beat off and continues to get more out of time. They are both audio tracks, no midi. I looked for some time strech or anything that could have been the culprit and I just don't get what it could be. We erased tracks and started over no good. Tried recording the guitar to a different track number...no good. I uninstalled the program and reinstalled, but I noticed that it seemed to keep his settings and it did the exact same thing.

He apparently got a few beers in him the other night and decided to click on stuff "to see what the program could really do" and now he found out :p I told him rule #1 of having a DAW that actually runs right is don't "f" it up by pressing random crap. He would really appreciate it if any of you know of something he could have pressed or changed that would cause that behavior. Many thanks for any help you guys can give.
 
Sounds like it might be the playback and/or recording timing master settings. Look it up in the help system or the manual. I don't remember what the menu is called.
 
It's under Options -> Audio, look for Playback/Recording Timing Master.

What soundcard does your friend use, BassMaster?
 
That's wierd.
Let me ask you this. Does the guitar track look shorter than the drum track after it's been recorded, or do they both line up nicely on the screen?

What sort of sound card is he using?
 
Thanks for the quick replies, guys. I will have him look into the playback/recording master timing. He is using a soundblaster equivilent soundcard, it's supposed to be a step up his friend told him, but it's not a delta or M-audio or anything like that. As a matter of fact he is going to by a Delta when he gets his new computer this friend is building for him, but that is at least a few months off but the program ran perfectly with this soundcard before.

Bulls, I didn't get to see if it matched up all the way to the end because we just kept recording a minute or less of the guitar part to see if any of the changes I was making were helping, since it was repeatedly messing up we didn't want to waste more time doing the whole part.

It's the wierdest thing to have one audio track that plays just fine, but to have the next one playing at a slightly faster rate. I know about MIDI timing problems and latency issues, but I have never seen anything like this with two audio tracks that I watched being recorded that start together but end up apart. Now that I think about it, we should have laid a third track down and seen if it matched up with the drums, or the guitar, or went faster than the other two all together.


The setup ran great for two months so it's frustrating to know that it CAN work but isn't, and I can't find what he did to make the change. If anyone has any other suggestions I know he would really appreciate it and again, thank you to those who have already replied. I'll have him look into that master timing setting.
 
I've read somewhere (I think was at creative.com, but I'm not sure) that SoundBlaster wannabies is even worse for recording than the SB itself... The crystal clock is supposed to be close to catastrophal.
I mean, even my lousy laptop soundcard records in time.
 
moskus said:
I've read somewhere (I think was at creative.com, but I'm not sure) that SoundBlaster wannabies is even worse for recording than the SB itself... The crystal clock is supposed to be close to catastrophal.
I mean, even my lousy laptop soundcard records in time.
Click to expand...

Now that you print that, I think I remember CrystalWDM or something to that effect being listed as his soundcard input. I know it isn't a soundblaster, his buddy said it was a step up, but except for Soundblaster and Turtle Beach I don't know much about consumer grade soundcards except they suck for recording. I'm just trying to figure out how this could have worked perfectly before but not now. My friend said he tried uninstalling everything and reinstalling it before I got over there, perhaps he switched to an older driver version.

I really appreciate all the suggestions...I will pass them on and see if one of these isn't the culprit. Perhaps his friend can "downgrade" him to a real soundblaster :D
 
I put my money on that even a SB Live! would be better for recording. They cost next to nothing these days, so it's worth a shot...
 
I agree. Put an SBLive card in there. I used one for a couple years before I got the Audiophile 2496. It worked fine. In the mean time make sure you set the master timing to the sound card that is installed.
 
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