Sample rate problem? How do I fix it?

[thebigcheese]

I never seem to have much luck getting problems solved in the Reaper forums (because no one ever replies), so hopefully someone here can help. About a week ago, I decided that I wanted to start recording at 44.1 instead of 48. So I switched up Reaper so that new projects would use 44.1. On Saturday, I was playing a gig and set up my gear to record the performance using the new settings. It seems to have recorded just fine, and when I played it back later (using my computer's built-in audio card instead of my interface), from start to finish, there were no problems. Today, however, that is not the case. I am having huge problems. I opened up that same file and, like has been the case before with Reaper on my Macbook Pro, the sample rate in the menu bar didn't match what the project or the interface were supposed to be set at, so I changed everything to make sure it was correct and relaunched the program. Everything looked fine. I played it back, made a couple edits, changed volume, added some EQ here and there, made a time selection, and rendered to an mp3. When I came back after it finished rendering, I hit play and the song played back slow and at a lower pitch (as a result of playing slow, I imagine). I tried relaunching the program, restarting my computer, changing sample rates, more relaunching... nothing fixed it. Even the rendered mp3 plays back slow. What's the deal? Why is this happening? I need to get a mix out by Friday, but that's obviously not going to happen.

 

[thebigcheese]

Well, I can get my old projects to work still, but I can't get the one that I recorded at 44.1 to work. I thought I made sure the settings were all set for 44.1, but maybe something was off? The project seems to be a complete loss at this point, which isn't so bad because it wasn't critical, but I would like to know why it happened so I can prevent the problem in the future, especially if I want to keep using 44.1 (which I do).

 

[VomitHatSteve]

So the project says it's at 44.1, it's playing back slowly? Or You set it to 44.1 and it automagically jumped back to 48?

I really don't know how to fix this. I'd guess it's just a matter of setting the sample rate in the right location. Both the project and the audio track itself are at 44.1, right?

Worst case scenario cheap fix would be to open your mp3 in a simpler editor (like Audacity) and change the speed there. (That's why I still use Audacity for some tasks. It's simpler, so there's less to go wrong!)

 

[thebigcheese]

Honestly, I really don't know what happened. I think that somehow the interface and the computer were not communicating correctly when I recorded, so now even when I play it back just previewing in the Finder it is slowed down. The good news is that I can change the playback rate to about 1.09 and get a reasonably close match to the speed/pitch it was supposed to be playing at. I would never do that with other recordings, but the one recording that was messed up was kind of a scratch live track anyway. Luckily, the recordings that actually mattered - the ones recorded at 48k - are not permanently messed up, there was just some more communication errors going on there. Someone on the Reaper forums suggested that I simply set the sample rate on the interface myself and uncheck the "Project Sample Rate" box in the project settings and the "Request Sample Rate" box in the interface settings. That way, the interface is always in control and there shouldn't be communication errors. Hopefully that will work.

 

[jarrydee]

I have a simalar problem..Im useing a maudio 610 and no matter what SR I start the session at, when I open it later it always says 41k, until I open the maudio software mixer and set it to 96k there..I don't understand why it don't know the SR of the session, or how it plays back right even though I recorded at 96, and it reset itself to 41 at start up..ughh I hate this...I can set it to 96k in the maudio mixer first and it works, but I think it should know what the session is and change it!!

OK rant over ..sorry!!

 

[Farview]

What interface/soundcard are you using? You need to change the sample rate there.

If you are using the onboard soundcard, a lot of them are fixed at 48k and sample rate convert on-the-fly when playing back 44.1k stuff. Soundblaster cards used to do this too.