Time Mismatch - Audio Position v TimeLine

Audacity Help Forum macOS
1

Good afternoon

I’m using Audacity 2.1.2 with Yosemite 10.10.5.

I’ve been recording vinyl with little problem - however today I’ve noticed a discrepancy between the Timeline and the time shown in the Audio Position. As the disc plays the Audio Position shows the correct elapsed time but the timeline (?) where the audio is displayed (sorry I’m a novice with terminology) lags behind.

For an example an album side of around 24 minutes shows as 22-23 minutes when I stop the recording - it’s hard for me to tell the difference in the playing but I can only assume the tracks are playing a little fast.

Hope this is enough information for some input. Project rate is 44100Hz.

Thanks, Rod

2

Moved to the Mac board.

How is this turntable connected to the computer? If through a USB or Firewwire interface, see http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/faq_recording_troubleshooting.html#sync (scroll down to “To fix speed drift, pitch and quality problems, try the following tips”).

As it says in that link, you can use Change Speed to correct the length of recordings already made.

If the short length is actually do to small dropouts (zoom in to check), then change “Audio to buffer” in Audacity’s Recording Preferences to “0” or whatever minimum value still allows you to record smoothly. Having buffer set too high gives bad results on Mac.


Gale

3

Thanks so much for your reply.

I’m using a USB connection and a Macbook Air.

I suspect it may be a memory management issue (either with the Mac or Audacity) as sometimes it will work for 90 minute plus and at other times records 10 minutes for 20 elapsed minutes!

I’ve found a workaround (including your suggestion for 0 in the settings) which involves restarting Audacity and/or the Mac which seems to work.

Thanks again, Rod

4

You do need to reboot reasonably often using a USB connection. However only 10 minutes recording without problems isn’t reasonable.

If setting a low Audio to buffer in Audacity doesn’t help, then you could try resetting the SMC.


Gale

5

Thanks again - I’ve got it working now.
The curious thing was that the elapsed time showed (for example) showed 20 minutes (one album side) but the time recorded was only 10 minutes …
Onwards!
Rod