Audacity Forum

OK .. please please please ... someone tell me what I am doing wrong or please tell me what I need to do to fix this issue ...

I just bought an audiobox usb unit to plug my Shure SM58 mic into my computer (Dell Laptop) .. I am a vocalist .. and people send me tracks of music to lay my vocals over. I do no mixing - they just need a dry vocal to do it all on their end ...

They want it recorded in 44.1kHz .. which audacity does ... BUT .. when I import the track and play it in audacity - its perfect .. sounds wonderful .. but when I go ahead and hit the record button .. (ensuring the project rate is 44100 on the bottom of the screen) the song speeds up and changes key (obviously because it is now playing faster)

What setting is wrong? I cannot find anything to change to fix this.

I can change the rate to 22050 to record the vocals on and the music stabilizes and I can record ... but they can't use a file a send them at that rate - they told me it will sound like I am singing through a telephone ... I can also record it at 48000 ... which can be converted to 44.1 - I just want to know why I cannot record in 44.1? I also hear there are issues when taking a track recorded at 48000 and converting it to 44.1 ....

Any feedback/help on this matter will be appreciated ...

Your USB sound card will have a "native" sample rate, which sounds like it is probably 48kHz (48000 Hz), and from what you say, recording at 48000 Hz is no problem, so you should set your Audacity Preferences to use 48000 Hz as the default (Edit>Preferences>Quality).

Some sound cards just do not work properly when set to sample rates that are not their preferred default. Audacity can not do anything about that as it is an issue with the sound card/sound card driver.

There should be no problem with recording at 48kHz and then Exporting at 44100 Hz (44.1kHz).
To Export at 44100 Hz:
Do all of your editing and processing at 48kHz, then before you Export, use the "Project Rate" box in the lower left of the main Audacity screen to set the project rate to 44100. Your exported file will then be at 44.1kHz.

Thank you ... you have fixed my issue!