analog -> digital :(

[mcfl0nuz]

We've been recording our bands ep in the local college's studio using their Sony 24 track tape recorder. After recording all the parts on tape we dumped it on pro tools and brought it to my house to mix it down. Somewhere along the process the speed of the song slowed down, not sure where and/or how. But to give you an idea, the first note of the song is a low E but if you listen to it on our recording it sounds like something in between D and D#...thats how slow it has gotten.

We have no idea how this happened, and maybe someone can help us fix this problem or at least tell us what went wrong.

thanks a lot!
-Joe A

[Lazy_Q]

a drop like that might be a formatting issue i.e. you recorded it at 48 khz and are playing it back at 44 khz. aside from that? the next most logical thing is tape slowdown, and I think you'd know if that was the case.

A/D conversion doesn't really do that. Seriously.

[mcfl0nuz]

yeah, im starting to think it was the tape...

we've been trying to call the engineer but he's at a wedding

[Shabbadoo]

I'm pretty sure the only thing that could cause that would be that the tape was slowed down when you dumped it. I think you can only play back at the rate you sampled at. Pro Tools knows whether it's 44 or 48k automatically.

As far as fixing it, there's always the Pitch and Time 2 plugin.

It's going to take a long damn time to correct the pitch for 24 track sessions one by one, but it does a good job, and once you know the correct setting, you can set it to run and leave for awile. It can change the pitch or the length individually, but it will also change them both together.

[jajjguy]

I'ev had hardware-software miscommunications such that something got recorded at one sample rate but was marked as a different sample rate and played back too slow. It wasn't protools, but it wasn't supposed to happen and it did. I fixed it, but using some heavy-duty non-music software.

Sounds to me like your best bet is probably to redo the transfer.

[jca83]

well, what hardware are you using to playback on? we use protools, but the system we play back on is digital also, and that has to have the right bitrate as well otherwise everything's slower/faster... 48 v. 44.1. that's what i'm betting this problem is.

[mcfl0nuz]

we are going hte lazy route, we mixed down the track and have everything ready, going toe xport it and then do the pitch change in sound forge.

sounds pretty good...we're also adding the vocals after the pitch change so they dont sound all weary...

what kills me is that we have another 3 songs to go...

[mcfl0nuz]

well, we dumped it on protools, burned the .wavs on cd and we're now using cubase sx here at my place...

what can we do about this?

[wayne kerr]

what can we do about this?

Two things - check your sample rate. You CAN play back at the wrong sample rate if you somehow manually changed your configuration. That's the likely culprit. It is unlikely the tape speed was off. First of all, you would've noticed it during the transfers, and second, you have to go through three different steps to activate VSO on the APR24.

Sis

[wayne kerr]

we are going hte lazy route

This could also be a part of your problem.

Sis

[mcfl0nuz]

I wasnt there for the transfers...

as for the lazy route, we did try to pitch change each track individually but sound forge is giving me problems...

[wayne kerr]

Do you have any documentation from the session? Like a track sheet perhaps? A good engineer documents everything, so maybe when this guy is back from the wedding you can contact him and get the deets.

good luck,

Sis

[mcfl0nuz]

yep...seems like a rate issue...

im about to go run myself head first into a wall...

[Mark Alan Miller]

Another chime in on a sample rate issue (you CAN play 48kHz files in a 44.1kHz session, they just play slow - about a half-step... Also, if PT was set to external clock, and the extrenal clock rate was not the same as the session's sr setting, that could yeild the symptoms of 'slowdown'.)

I'm not into the idea of using pitch shifting or time compression tools on all of the tracks. Even if a tiny amount of artifact is introduced per track, it sure adds up! I tried that once when a client wanted the song in a different key.. sure made the track odd, grainy and, well, artifact-y when they were all played together. And we didn't even try to change the tempo at all of the drums. And it was only a half-step shift. (We actually used it 'cause the track needed some funky sonic identity... I'd probably never consider it for a whole album.) It was Serato P&T, which I love for a fix here and there, btw.

Go back and re-transfer if monkeying with the PT session's SR setting doesn't work. (Have you tried creating a new 48kHz session and importing the (likely flagged at 44.1kHz) files into it? PT will happily play back 44.1Khz files at 48kHz, even if the files were erroneously flagged at 48kHz (by a mistake such as the one in my first paragraph... And as it was possibly transfered with a clock issue like this, then imported into another DAW, that could really muck with things exactly as you describe.)

Good luck- keep us posted.

[mcfl0nuz]

<img src="http://llusive.netfirms.com/Head%20Agai ... ll%202.gif">
^thats how I felt after I Realized it was a rate issue. The files were recorded at 48k and I started the cubase session at 44.1 (I didnt even THINK About the rate until after reading the replies here) which is a huge mistake by me, and I obviously had to pay for it. We fixed the problem and everything is A-ok now.

Just a reminder to make sure you check EVERYTHING before you start workin on a mix down.