Noob...Tempo Not Behaving properly

[G524UUW]

Hello,

Noob here! New to the forum, and new to recording.

I'm having a problem with the timing or tempo of the tracks.

I'll record the drum track and that's fine.

I then record the bass track and on playback, the timing is out. Not always right from the start, but the problem gets worse as the track goes on. It's almost like this:

I play the drums for 1.00 minute.

Then I play the bass for one minute.

Once both are recorded on seperate tracks, the bass track seems longer. Now, lets say, 1.03. So as the song goes on, my bass gradually gets out of time with the drums, even though they were on time when I recorded them. Still with me?

I've got the basic free download version of Audacity.

This may well be the last post I ever do because if I can't fix the problem the laptop is going out the window, along with the drums, bass, guitar, bassist, guitarist and drummer.

Any help would be much appreciated, and cut the national crime rate at the same time.

Thanks,

Ian.

[kozikowski]

This can happen with a bad sound card. When you capture a live performance, the sound card creates a digital representation of the show and then sends it on to the hard drive for safekeeping.

When you play back the performance, it goes through a different portion of the sound card. The two portions don't have to be exactly in step and on cheap sound cards, they're mostly not.

I'm betting the computer played back the original track at the wrong speed. If you record a three minute segment and play it back, I bet it's not three minutes.... Or better yet, record a metronome for three minutes and then play that back while the original one is still running.

You can get rid of a lot of these problems with an external USB sound card.

http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=9477

Koz

[G524UUW]

Thank you for that. I'll be investing in an external sound card then, the laptop ain't the best quality, so it probably needs it.

I played along in time with a metronome and when I played it back it was well out.

[kozikowski]

<<<I played along in time with a metronome and when I played it back it was well out.>>>

Obviously, the metronome is broken.

Koz

[G524UUW]

Problem solved with new sound card. I genuinely have got better timing than a metronome.

Ian 1 - 0 Technology.

[waxcylinder]

Ian,

I think that Koz was trying to be sarky - not that he's known for that - it's normally curmudgeonly with him (he even lists that as his profession in his profile!).
Glad you got it working anyway. Which external soundcard did you end up buying? Maybe you could add a review of it to this sticky thread that we have: http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=9477

WC