Problem with Ubuntu that didn't have with XP3

[Bill Mc]

I used to be running Audacity on an XP Pro SP3 machine. I recently changed to an Ubuntu (only) machine.

After installing 1.3.7, and loading some tracks from my old PC, a strange thing happened to one of them. When I play it, a loud POP occurs followed by the song but the pitch has been shifted up. I went back to the original track source and re-downloaded but the same thing happens. All other tracks from that same source play back fine. Any ideas? (I'm really pretty new to both Ubuntu and Audacity so please be kind!) (I also took the "fresh" download to a friend's windows box and it plays fine.)

Bill

[steve]

What format is the file? WAV? MP3? OGG? ....
Try playing it in VLC (VLC can be installed with Synaptic if you do not have it already).

[Bill Mc]

The file is an mp3. I should have mentioned that it does play fine in VLC (on the old XP machine as well as the new Ubuntu.)

The track is from a mandolin lesson. I'd prefer to use Audacity because I can easily select various sections of the song to play along with over and over.

Bill

[steve]

Use VLC to convert it to a WAV file, then import the WAV file into Audacity and see if that works.

[Bill Mc]

Sorry for the reply delay but was out most of yesterday. Anyway, I tried the WAV conversion but because of the "rights" attached to the MP3, I can't get a VLC conversion that works/plays in Audacity.

Bill

[Bill Mc]

Got conversion to work with K3B - plays perfectly in Audacity now. Don't know what the problem was with that one track but all is well! Thanks for the suggestions.

Bill

[steve]

but because of the "rights" attached to the MP3,....

The MP3 format does not have DRM (digital rights management), so this is almost certainly the source of the problem.
Confusingly Thomson, the company that sells MP3 licenses on behalf of Fraunhofer, have developed a DRM enabled compressed audio format that they call "MP3", but it is not the same and is not compatible with the earlier "normal" MP3 (and they do not play on most MP3 players.
There are other compressed formats such as WMA MP4 and AAC that do support DRM.
DRM protected files are likely to cause problems in Audacity because that is exactly what DRM has been designed to do.

[Bill Mc]

Thanks for the info. This (Ubuntu, Audacity, VLC, etc.) is all new to me but well worth the learning curve.

(And just so no one thinks I was trying to "misappropriate" anything, I bought the lesson/track from bluegrasscollege.com and was simply trying to use it on my new Ubuntu machine after having deleted it from my old pc.)

Bill