unrequested pitch change

[carloc]

Hi, can someone tell me why it suddenly changes the pitch while recording?
I've been recording for months with no problems. But now everytime I try to record a new track (either voice or guitar) pitch is automatically changed by audacity. How does it happen?
Thanks

[steve]

This is usually caused by a faulty clock signal on the sound card. (a hardware problem)

[steve]

This is usually caused by a faulty clock signal on the sound card. (a hardware problem)

Hello, any idea about how to solve this porblem?

First you need to check that it really is a hardware problem- the best way to do this for sound cards that are not integral to the mother board, is to try the sound card on another computer and see if it still has the problem.

Going back to the original question "everytime I try to record a new track (either voice or guitar) pitch is automatically changed by audacity."
Audacity does not have any functions for automatically changing the pitch unless you actually tell it to (for example by using the "Change Speed" effect, or changing the sample rate of the track).

If Audacity consistently records with a fixed speed difference, for example at exactly 91.875% of the correct speed, then it may well be a driver problem. This could indicate that Audacity was being told by the sound card driver that the data from the sound card was at one sample rate, but in fact it was at a different sample rate. In this case it may be possible to fix the problem by re-installing, or updating the sound card drivers. If that doesn't work then it may be possible to work round the problem by changing the default sample rate in Audacity to a sample rate that works correctly.

If the pitch change is not a definite fixed amount, but gradually drifts faster and/or slower, then it is almost certainly a hardware fault.

If it is a hardware fault, the only practical solution is to replace the sound card.

The easy way to test if the problem is with Audacity is to try recording with another program, such as the "Windows Sound Recorder" and see if the problem persists.