HELP! Recorded Sonar 4 audio tracks playback at slow speed

This forum is dedicated to Sonar discussions.
bobegeee
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Oct 27, 2008 12:30 pm

Post by bobegeee » Mon Oct 27, 2008 12:38 pm

Recorded audio tracks in Sonar 4 play back at much slower (half?) speed. I've tried changing settings to get playback at normal speed, but to no avail. What am I doing wrong?


ComposerTed
Posts: 17
Joined: Sun Jan 25, 2004 5:16 am
Location: Michigan, USA

Post by ComposerTed » Mon Oct 27, 2008 5:15 pm

Hi Bobegeee,

Can we have some more information please:

(1) Can you play the audio (wav format?) files at normal speed on the same computer but using different programs (sound recorder, Windows Media Player, Winamp, etc.)?

(2) Do midi tracks with a soft synth or sampler play back at normal speed with in Sonar?

I'm not sure exactly what's causing the problem, but answers to the foregoing (and any other information you think might be relevant) might help to narrow it down at least :)

Ted

bobegeee
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Oct 27, 2008 12:30 pm

Post by bobegeee » Mon Oct 27, 2008 9:47 pm

Hi Ted. Thanks so much for your response! I can play back the wav files on the same computer using WMPlayer, but with the same VERY slow playback results. Music I've recorded beforehand plays back within Sonar at normal speed. It must have something to do with the recording settings. When I recorded the first song with the band, I checked it and it played back fine and we went on to record the next tune. Now it doesn't. I'm at a loss.

Here are my Sonar settings:
OPTIONS/PROJECT/CLOCK:
Audio (Perhaps this should be set for Internal?) If this is the cause of the problem, is there any way to restore the audio I recorded?


OPTIONS/PROJECT/GLOBAL:
44.1
Bit Depth 16
ASIO
256 Samples buffer
OPTIONS/PROJECT/ADVANCED:
ASIO Driver Mode

I'm running XP-Pro on a 1.3Mhz computer
768 MB RAM
2 GB Virtual Memory
Echo Layla 3G Audio Card
Plenty of hard drive space available.

Thanks so much for your assistance!
Bob

ComposerTed
Posts: 17
Joined: Sun Jan 25, 2004 5:16 am
Location: Michigan, USA

Post by ComposerTed » Tue Oct 28, 2008 12:02 am

Hi again Bob,

Thanks for the updated info. Recording sound into Sonar is not my primary area of experiece (as I usually just compose midi tracks that record to soft synths or samplers or occasionally import audio that I recorded elsewhere), but I bet if we put our heads together we can make some progress on your problem. If not, maybe some helpful soul more knowledgeable than I am in this area will come along and help.

Anyway, I think your idea that the clock being set to audio might be the problem is a reasonable guess. I'd suggest trying some brief experiments recording with the clock set to midi sync, internal, audio, etc. to see if how that affects your recording results. My guess would be that midi sync would be the one that would work best (Sonar's help screen says that uses the clock on the external MIDI device). That's just a guess, however, so don't hold me to it :)

One way I know that one could get slow audio within Sonar would be to highlight some audio and use Process/Length to change the length (say to 50%) with the "stretch audio" option checked. I doubt you did that, but I mention it to cover all of the bases.

That method, by the way, would be something you could try to get your audio back to the proper speed, stretching it by 200% instead of 50% (assuming it is exactly half speed now), of course, and making sure to save a copy rather than the original (just in case something goes horribly wrong). I'm not sure if the result will turn out exactly right (pitch could be off depending on how the slow audio file was created in the first place), but I would definitely give it a try.

hope that helps,

Ted

Post Reply