Collab project problems

[sikter]

Collaboration project is having some big difficulties.
I live in Europe and my friend lives in Central America.
I record metronome and other tracks 32 bits and convert them to mp3 for easy sending by e mail.
He transfer files to Tascam and record drums. After he transfer drum tracks to his PC end send them to me but after I inserted them to my Audition multitrack session I can see that they don’t line up.
His drum track is actually longer then metronome track I sent.
They seem to be ok but after a while everything is fucked up.

At his place, everything is timing perfectly. He mixes it down and sends it to me and I can hear the drums are timing perfectly in mix.
Still his mix is longer then mine and I talking about songs length,
not about empty part at the end of file.

We use same bit rate.
I use voltage 220 V, he uses 110 V
I don’t say it is important I just try to give you guys as much info about everything.

What is going wrong?
We are not in this game for the first time. We both have recording and mixing experience.
We both did collab-projects before. I never had a similar problem before.
Once I had to move track in time line for a few milliseconds and that was it.
But this time I have to actually shrink his file or stretch mine.
This is not how it’s supposed to be.
I hope problem is going to be solved by your help

I don’t think I’ll get too much sleep tonight.
Please help

sikter

 

[DonF]

He transfer files to Tascam and record drums.

What TASCAM? Analog or digital? If it's analog (or even if it's digital, but the transfer was done via the analog inputs and outputs), there's your answer. There's no guarantee that the conversion from digital to analog and back again will maintain sync. And there's no guarantee that an analog machine will run at the same speed every time.

If the TASCAM is digital, there are fewer things that can go wrong. I'd need to know the exact procedure your friend used to do the transfers.

If you have no other choice, make a strategic edit here and there to force the drum track to stay in sync with your click.

Don

 

[sikter]

Thank you for so fast respond

He uses Tascam DP01 8 track DAW but I think he has mentioned something about connecting it with analogue tascam 414.
I think I have a picture somewhere because I asked him just about that issue.
http://sikter69.googlepages.com/tascam2

 

[studiomaster]

110V and 220V are not bit rates...

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

After he transfer drum tracks to his PC

How is he doing that and what is he using on his PC?

Make sure you guys are not accidentally mixing different bitrate bitmap files together; if you or he try laying a 48k track into a 44.1k project (or vice versa) this can throw things off. So can it if you guys are doing any MIDI, are both using Audition, but have your projects set to different BPM tempos.

In short, make sure all your file and project specifications are identical in format and speed.

G.

 

[sikter]

110V and 220V are not bit rates...

I meant to say we used the same bit rate but different voltage.
I know I wrote it clumsy but anyway I said that 220 V and 110 V was voltages.
I doubt it has anything to do with my problem.

I thought it had something to do with transfer of files (PC-Tascam-PC)
I asked him if drum tracks was lined up with files I sent to him and he said that he mixed
them with his drums and after he sent me the mix I heard everything is in perfect line.
Problem was that his mix was longer then mine.
I even measured time from very first kick to do last one.

 

[sikter]

How is he doing that and what is he using on his PC?

Make sure you guys are not accidentally mixing different bitrate bitmap files together; if you or he try laying a 48k track into a 44.1k project (or vice versa) this can throw things off. So can it if you guys are doing any MIDI, are both using Audition, but have your projects set to different BPM tempos.

In short, make sure all your file and project specifications are identical in format and speed.

G.

Thank you for your respond.
I am double checking it.
We had agreement about that before we start the project but since we both use 32 bit rate and 44100 K sample rate it shouldn't be a problem unless we think those are the same but they are not.
Like I said I'll double check it.

Thanks man.

 

[sikter]

My collab friend has sent me his original files (WAV) via yousendit and guess what:
They sync 100%
I am confused but very glad in the same time.

 

[superspit]

My collab friend has sent me his original files (WAV) via yousendit and guess what:
They sync 100%
I am confused but very glad in the same time.

I wonder if the actual MP3 conversion was upsetting something?

 

[danny.guitar]

What program did you use to encode the MP3s?

Some default to a 48K sample rate (for video).

If that's the case, then that would be why you had sync problems.

 

[sikter]

I am convinced it has something to do with mp3 converting process.
I have even read about changes what poping up while compressing wav file to mp3. That change was affecting the time. (Unfortunately text was not in English and I won’t post it here.
If I get more time I can use it for translation or even better -hire someone else to that part.

I do collab projects for almost 3 years. It did not happen before and I am still little confused.

My friend used Cool Edit Pro I guess. I use Adobe Audition but I tested his mp3 drums both on Cool edit Cubase and Acid. The problem was the same.
32 bit 44,1 KHz sample rate.
We have agreement about those parameters before we started anything.

 

[DonF]

You might consider using flac (http://flac.sourceforge.net/download.html) instead of mp3 for your transfers. The amount of file compression is significantly less than with mp3, but it is completely lossless. What you get out after decompression is bit-for-bit identical to what went into compression.

 

[sikter]

You might consider using flac (http://flac.sourceforge.net/download.html) instead of mp3 for your transfers. The amount of file compression is significantly less than with mp3, but it is completely lossless. What you get out after decompression is bit-for-bit identical to what went into compression.

Thanks!
I did not know about it.
I always used mp3 and didn't have any problems until now.
I'll try "Flac"