Audacity Forum

Hi. I have a problem whenever I record.. my tracks seem to de-sync themselves for no good reason. I created a click track, and played along to it with my piano; then, when I played back, at first the two tracks were perfectly in sync, but then as time went by, they started to become out of sync and after about a minute they were COMPLETELY off. what's going on, what can cause this?

I know this wasn't human error by the way, my timing may not be perfect, but I definitely didn't play this poorly.

<<<what's going on, what can cause this?>>>

Cheap sound cards use different electronics for record and playback. Most people don't notice that their hour recording didn't come out exactly one hour when they played it back, but the first time you try to do sound sync, the issue comes up almost immediately.

Ever try to get two different stand-alone metronomes to sync for three minutes. You can't.

PCs are business computers, not theatrical production machines.

I'm trying to remember... I think the standard way out is not use the sound card at all and install one of the USB external sound cards. The timing errors on those tends to be much smaller.

http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=9477

Koz

kozikowski wrote:<<<what's going on, what can cause this?>>>

Cheap sound cards use different electronics for record and playback. Most people don't notice that their hour recording didn't come out exactly one hour when they played it back, but the first time you try to do sound sync, the issue comes up almost immediately.

Ever try to get two different stand-alone metronomes to sync for three minutes. You can't.

PCs are business computers, not theatrical production machines.

I'm trying to remember... I think the standard way out is not use the sound card at all and install one of the USB external sound cards. The timing errors on those tends to be much smaller.

http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=9477

Koz

so basically, the only way to solve this is buying a new soundcard?

<<<buying a new soundcard?>>>

What was your old computer and sound card?

Koz

kozikowski wrote:<<<buying a new soundcard?>>>

What was your old computer and sound card?

Koz

well, frankly, I'm not much of a techie, but my computer tells me that my audio drivers are "Legacy" and "Realtek High Definition Audio".

So you're doing this on your laptop?

Koz

kozikowski wrote:So you're doing this on your laptop?

Koz

Nope, desktop. It was built by a family friend who supposedly used top-end equipment, but this was about 5 years ago... so I take that with a spoon of salt..

Merry Christmas by the way, thanks for helping me out during this time!

I use one of those external soundcards (the Edirol) bought as I had a ppor souncard in my desktop. The Edirol has produced consistently excellent recordings.

WC