Audacity Forum

I'm new to this forum so please forgive me if this question has been answered before.

Here is my scenario:

1. I record a track.
2. I record an overlaying track and during this process of recording and listening to the initial track, I hear some mild clipping sounds.
3. When I play back the two tracks at once, I find that the second track is in a different pitch (it seems slightly higher).

Does this make sense to anyone? I really like the program and I've never had this problem before. If anyone could offer some advice, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thank you.

Basically, your computer is struggling to keep up with the audio. There are many things that can cause this, but the most common are;
Anti-virus programs interfering with the recording process.
Disk fragmentation.
Other programs running at the same time.

There are many other suggestions here: http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php? ... Recordings

I have the same problem in recording, but none of your suggestions works: it's a brand new pc, so it's not fragmented, not other programs running....but the recorded track kept on running faster and in a higher pitch.
I solved it booting with linux, and now it works! Can it be a Vista problem? I'd like to use Audacity under Win too!

nenaz wrote:it's a brand new pc, so it's not fragmented

Have you checked? Just because it is new does not mean that data on the drive is not fragmented. A fresh Windows installation leaves data fragments all over the place.

nenaz wrote:but the recorded track kept on running faster and in a higher pitch.

That may be a different problem - did you also get the "mild clipping sounds"?

nenaz wrote:I'd like to use Audacity under Win too

Try changing the default sample rate (Edit > Preferences > Quality). If it is set at 48000, change it to 44100. If it is at 44100, try changing it to 48000.

nenaz wrote:I have the same problem in recording, but none of your suggestions works: it's a brand new pc, so it's not fragmented, not other programs running....but the recorded track kept on running faster and in a higher pitch.
I solved it booting with linux, and now it works! Can it be a Vista problem? I'd like to use Audacity under Win too!

im running xp

nenaz wrote:I'd like to use Audacity under Win too

Try changing the default sample rate (Edit > Preferences > Quality). If it is set at 48000, change it to 44100. If it is at 44100, try changing it to 48000.[/quote]

this fixed my issue! thank you. just out of curiosity, what does adjusting the sample rate do?

The sample rate is the number of samples per second that the digital audio format uses (see Wikipedia for a better explanation).
CD audio uses 44100 samples per second (for each audio channel).

If you want to burn a CD, you should Export as "16bit 44100Hz Microsoft (PCM) WAV" to ensure compatibility.
The Export sample rate is always the same as the Project Sample Rate - you can change it at any time using the Project Rate box in the lower left corner of the main Audacity window.

Some sound cards have a minor failing in that they do not work well (or at all) at certain sample rates, while they work perfectly well at other sample rates. This is a sound card / sound card driver issue rather than Audacity, so you just need to set Audacity to use the sample rate that works best for your system.

stevethefiddle,
you are the man!
much obliged.

Hi again,
I think I get that "mild clipping sounds" too (even if I'm not that sure of what it means): when I play my track there are moments of silence (like when the record plater skips..) and distorted audio;
I tried to change the rate but it goes the same. I think that the distorted pitch is just due to the faster speed...
I'll try to verify if the disk if fragmented, is it the last I can do?
many many thanks for your help

As before, as well as setting the sample rate, the most common bottlenecks are due to:
Anti-virus programs interfering with the recording process.
Disk fragmentation.
Other programs running at the same time.

then work your way through all the suggestions here: http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php? ... Recordings