Man oh man anyone who can help me with this problem will be my new hero. Forever.
I am a guitar player and wanted to start using my pc for some recording. I d’loaded the free program Audacity and plugged my guitar into my soundcard and recorded some tunes. They came out great but what I recorded was in G and when played back they came out in Gsharp. Always a semi-tone higher. I posted a question on the Audacity site and got some answers that my outgoing MHZs did not match my incoming MHZs etc etc. I did not understand a thing and kind of forgot about it.
Until Christmas when my wife bought me a Zoom H4 which is a digital recorder for my guitar, for bootlegging concerts etc etc etc.
Once again I recorded several tunes and when i do’loaded THEM to the pc they too played a semi-tone higher than the original. For example a tune in A played back in Bflat, a tune in E played back in F etc.
I am about to pull my freakin hair out. Someone on the Audacity site told me to check my soundcard and I think I did that. I am pretty sure I have an integrated soundcard cause from what I can see it is a Realtek AC97. I imagine it is the bottom of the line cause when I put this pc together with the guy at the store he told me since I was not a gamer I did not really need a good card.
So I guess what I am askin is if anything knows anything about soundcards and digital recording??? If I upgrade my soundcard would this problem go away???
I have asked 20 people and noone can give me a definite answer. All I want is the tunes I record to play back in the ORIGINAL KEY!!!
So if any of you kind souls has any knowledge of soundcards and digital recording and could give me any advice whatsoever I would be forever grateful.
And you would keep me from pulling out what is left of my hair. 
Thanks so much for listening and I am sorry if this has nothing to do with the usual topics.
Almost hairless, Montreal Larry
PS> Also how difficult is it to change a soundcard??? I have Windows XP.
Don’t pull the hair out. You’ll need it later.
<<<If I upgrade my soundcard would this problem go away??? >>>
I’m guessin’ yes. I agree with the MHz people. Cheap sound cards may record your performance with bad digital numbers. Send that sound file to someone whose sound card works right, and you get some really entertaining playback–and not in a good way.
Ever record on a reel-to-reel? If your cheap recorder is turning at the wrong speed, you will produce a tape nobody will be able to play.
Given how little a good sound card costs and given what you do, pop for the bux.
Koz
I agree that the soundcard is probably the problem, but even if it isn’t and the problem is elsewhere it’s still worth getting a better soundcard as it will be better when you get it working. On board sound cards are usually pretty bad.
With Audacity you can manually adjust the recordings so that they will play back at the correct pitch and tempo by using the “change speed” effect. To "transpose from G# to G you will need to slow it down just a little.
Thanks guys for taking the time to try and help me.
Someone on one of the other places I posted this told me that the first thing I should do was to update my soundcard driver. I did that and it solved everything! That simple.
And I am thrilled.
But for the life of me I will never understand computers. Simple things can be a pain in the ass to fix and what seems like a big problem is nothing. Oh well…
Again Thanks so much