Audacity Forum

Windows 8.1 x64
Audacity Zip 2.3.3

So i'm using a stopwatch to see that Audacity records 3m48s worth of audio, in the same time my phone stopwatch is as 3:52

is it possible that nobody else has had this issue?

i started noticing this lag when i recorded a 2 hour long video in OBS and a mic track in Audacity, just to have to constantly insert empty 1 second clips into the audio file recorded with Audacity (when editing), just to keep it in sync with the video from OBS, when editing.

noticed that although i started / stopped recording with OBS and Audacity at somewhat the same time, the Audacity audio file was way smaller in length when putting it right below the video file in my editor.

is this something nobody else had had occur? cause i can't find anything in google.

anybody know of this issue, or should i report as a bug, or what can i do to test whatever is the problem?

If there is skipping, runtime will be shorter.
https ://manual.audacityteam.org/man/faq_recording_troubleshooting.html#How_can_I_record_without_small_skips_.28dropouts.29_or_duplications.3F

OBS may be interrupting Audacity, causing skipping.
Could try increasing CPU-priority of Audacity, (but that could just cause Audacity to interrupt OBS).

in the last tests, i only run audacity recording virtually nothing (mic is connected by i just let the recording go for a couple of minutes) and nothing running in the background that should take from Audacity's ability to record a simple 2 minute empty track i don't think.

The timing is related to sample rate. Your error isn't exactly the same as 44.1kHz/48kHz but it's hard to measure over a couple of minutes so try changing your Audacity Project Rate (lower-left of the Audacity Window) to 48,000 (or to 44,100 if it's currently 48,000). A sample-rate difference isn't supposed to cause a problem like that. Everything is supposed to be properly re-sampled if necessary without messing-up the timing, but sometimes it does get messed-up.

Or, you could be getting dropouts. If there is missing audio, you'll end-up with a shorter file (and glitches in the audio). Dropouts are related to multitasking and if you're running video while recording with Audacity you are more likely to get dropouts/glitches. But, note that your operating system is always multitasking even if you're running only one application. You can get dropouts if there can be some background process or driver "hogging" the system for a few milliseconds too long. It doesn't have to be using a lot of CPU cycles, it just has to hog the system for long-enough to get buffer overflow.

Or, it could also be the clock (oscillator in your soundcard). No clock is perfect and it's not unusual for the timing to drift-off after a couple of hours, particularly with a "consumer soundcard". (Pros use a super-accurate master clock along with interfaces that have a master-clock input.)

fortunately*, or not, the issue is with the microphone itself (or it appears to be).
a jack mic i have here does not cause this issue.
so it's this usb mic i bought that is crap at handling stuff.

fortunately because if it was the sample rate problem, that would have been a major headache.
thanks for the replies.