Audacity recorded music at super high speed!

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

Help! I’m new to Audacity. I have Windows 10.

For a few days, all recordings were fine. Today I recorded some piano music the same way I recorded others past few days. But when I pressed the play button, the recording was “unlistenable” - it sounded like it was 10-25 times faster than what was performed!! :astonished: I didn’t change recording speed or playback speed.

This is my setup - an Audio Technica 2035 mic connected to a Scarlett 2i2 connected to my Dell PC (windows 10), with Audacity as my recording software.

I have no idea what went wrong. Can someone advise?


Thank you!


Irene

2

Go through this FAQ, after the first two paragraphs: Why is my new track out of sync with the previous ones, or sounds crackly or at wrong pitch?.


Gale

3

Thank you - I actually already read this before and it didn’t address my specific problem. Maybe I didn’t describe it very well.

The recording, which was supposed to be over several minutes, was contracted to a file that plays over a few seconds only at super high speed!

4

It does address your problem: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/faq_recording_troubleshooting.html#sync. You have to read all of it (after the first two paragraphs) and identify the cause by trial and error.

Speed errors with external audio devices are almost always due to sample rates being different in different places, so check that first.

As diagnosis, if you use Effect > Change Speed…, slow it down by using a negative percent change then listen, is the recording complete, or are there pieces missing?

Are you append recording (SHIFT + R or SHIFT-click the Record button) into the same track? If you do that you must not change the project rate or the track sample rate. If you do change them, the recording will be too fast or too slow (it’s an Audacity bug).


Gale