I am using Windows 7. The enclosed attachment shows two separate tracks. Track 1 Sample rate is 48000 Hz, while the Sample Rate on Track 2 is 44100. I may be daft but how in the world did I manage to get two separate sample rates?
Are you recording or importing? When you import a first file, Audacity changes the project rate if necessary to the sample rate of the file.
A second imported file does not change the project rate. Audacity never changes the sample rate of a track unless you explicitly change it.
Gale
Windows 7…First of all thanks Gale for your feedback! I obtained a small cassette player that converts the cassette into an MP3 file. I then recorded the cassette and converted the MP3 file into WAV format and then simply dragged the WAV file into Audacity. The plan was to eventually join Track 2 to Track 1.
The plan was to eventually join Track 2 to Track 1.
I don’t know where one of the files got changed, but joining the two files is no problem!
Audacity will simply re-sample to the project rate (shown in the lower-left part of the Audacity window) as necessary. Technically, it’s best to avoid unnecessary re-sampling, but practically speaking you could probably resample more than 10 times before you hear any difference (as long as you keep it at 16-bit/44.1kHz or higher).
I obtained a small cassette player that converts the cassette into an MP3 file. I then recorded the cassette and converted the MP3 file into WAV format and then simply dragged the WAV file into Audacity.
If you are recording (digitizing) with Audacity, it’s not MP3 until you export to MP3.
As you may know, MP3 is lossy compression so if possible you should minimize the number of times you compress. Audacity (like any “standard” audio editor) has to decompress the MP3 when it opens the file, and if you re-save as MP3 (or other lossy format) you are going through another generation of lossy compression. If you want MP3, ideally you should compress to MP3 once as the final step after all other editing & processing.
Good quality (high bitrate) MP3s can often sound identical to the uncompressed original, but data is lost and changed so it’s best to avoid multiple generations of compression whenever possible.