Weird Timing Issue

[thehukuis]

I'm having some kind of problem with timing on my multi-track recording, but it doesn't seem to be a typical latency problem. Instead of the second track gradually lagging behind the first, it seems the second track is gradually speeding up so that eventually it is quite far ahead of the original backing track. I'm using Audacity 1.2.6 with a Creative Labs X-Fi card (the gamer edition with hardware processing). Does anyone have an idea of what might be going on and how to fix it?

[thehukuis]

Anyone have any ideas?

[steve]

The problem is that the sound cards internal clock is not running at a constant speed.
It may improve if you select a different default sample rate (Edit menu > Preferences > Quality tab).

[thehukuis]

Is there any other way to fix this? I've played with all the settings for default sample rate and none of them seem to make much of a difference.

[steve]

Speeding up or slowing down is almost always a hardware problem, however I notice that you are using an X-Fi sound card that are known to be prone to driver issues. Make sure that you have the latest available drivers installed for the sound card. Also, try Audacity 1.3.7

If the issue remains after all that, then I doubt that there will be any solution short of replacing the sound card.

Just one little question - apart from the speed changing gradually, does it sound OK otherwise?

[thehukuis]

It sounds great otherwise. I am using the latest drivers from Creative Labs, I'll update to 1.3.7 and see if the problem is solved.

[thehukuis]

The upgrade to 1.3.7 seems to have solved the problem! I'm currently recording at 48kHz 32-bit (float) and not getting the same gradual increase in speed. Thank you!