SONAR: recorded audio seems to be speeding up

  • Thread starter Thread starter anchovio
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anchovio

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heres something that just started happening to me recently, and i cant figure out what the problem is--

im recording the vocals for a song right now from a studio projects c1 mic into a joe meek preamp into my tascam us-428

what has started happening, which has never happened before is that when i play back the recorded vocals, they seem to have undergone a tempo shift, speeding them up so that they arent on beat anymore.

i tried just counting the beat and recording that to make sure my vocalist wasnt simply going too fast, but even then i found my count sped up.

i havent made any changes to my system recently, with the exception of buying new bx5 monitors and also a memory upgrade, so im lost on whats going on.

any helpful ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. ant.
 
Is it a consistant timing error or is it actually gradually speeding up as it plays?
First thing that comes to mind is that you're mixing 44.1khz and 48khz recordings but it might also be that Sonars timing reference has changed. I have no experience with usb audio interfaces but you may have changed Sonars sync source between the pc clock and the Tascams. For a pci soundcard, the soundcard timing option should be used, I suppose the same would go for a USB device? Also, in Sonars Options/Audio menu is a setting for the "sound card" playback and recording device driver, these need to be consistant throughout a project and you should select the ones you are actually working on. If you have the computers on board sound device selected here, it will give you timing discrepances as its idea of 44.1khz will be a bit different from the Tascams.

Are the vocals the only thing you have recorded thru the Tascam? If the vocals are in time, but consistantly behind the beat on playback, it may simply be that you are monitoring the vocal recording "live" (direct) but the system can't compensate for the latency of the existing tracks playback. A digital recording is always behind time due to a delay in the path between the disk, memory and audio output. Sonar should know about this and automatically compensate so that new recordings are in time with existing tracks but it does depend on the sound devices driver working properly and being selected as the sync source. So that's another reason to check your audio options.
 
its the second.. the vocals actually seem to be speeding up.

hmm, i think youre probably on the right track though.

basically, im recording thru the tascam, but ultimately the song is playing out of my pci soundcard.. i noticed just now that the recording timer is the tascam, so i switched that back to keep both thru the card.

im sort of fudging with some options and preferences as we speak, ill let you know what works. thanks for your help.
 
Are you using 'Fit to time' at all or Groove Quantise at all, auto tune or pitch shifter?

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