Sample rate problem!

Aaron Smith

Envisage Audio
Feb 10, 2006
1,946
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Seattle, WA
So, I am going to be the douche bag of the day and inform you all of a mistake I made, with the hopes that my proposed solution is deemed acceptable. I recorded a song for a friend's band the other day with my Digi002, synched to a Presonus Digimax pre through ADAT. Knowing that the song may turn out to be a part of something they might later get mastered, I decided to create my Pro Tools session at 48k instead of the usual 44.1. Here's my mistake: I didn't remember to switch the clock on the Presonus to 48k from 44.1. All seemed to work fine, all day long, until I finally switched back to the internal clock, and all of sudden everything I'd recorded sounded higher in pitch by roughly a couple whole steps. Turning the Presonus back on at 44.1 and resynching "improperly" made everything go back down to the right pitch, but bouncing the song would still give me the high pitched problem. I'm still kind of confused about the whole thing, but I've pretty much concluded that there's no way I'm going to be able to get a proper bounce out of Pro Tools without it sounding the high pitched way. So, I think that the only thing I can do is to run the song (with the Presonus running 44.1 so the song sounds correct) through a couple line-outs from my Digi002, into a couple line-ins on my friend's Mbox. Basically I'd be ignoring whatever sample rate conversion crap I'm dealing with on my Digi002 situation, turning the song back into analog signal, then recreating files from that signal. I hope I'm being clear about this, like I said, I'm still kind of confused myself. But, does that solution sound okay to you all? I'm sure there technically will be some signal degradation, due to fact that I have to convert back to analog and then back to digital again, but will it be a difference that I even really need to be concerned about? Thanks!
 
Yeah, an analogue transfer is probably the only way it's going to work if bouncing won't work while snyced.
 
dude... could you not bounce out to 48k and then import that into a 44.1 arrange with out converting it? it would not need conversion as it would just be playing the "fast" file slower.

I've done this before (similar) in cubase when i recorded the drums using an asio driver @ 44.1 and some how it changed to 48... found out later someone had fiddled with the m-audio octain but never thought about looking there at the time!

dunno if that helps mate

C.
 
You basically have to match the freq rate with the project settings. Bounce everything to one freq rate and import them into a matching project.
 
If you have wavelab you can change the audio properties of a file with out re-sampling.

Your audio files are recorded in 44.1k but the headers say 48k. You need to make the headers say 44.1k.

In Wavelab open the file and go to Edit > Audio Properties and change to 44.1k, save, next file. I mixed a project last year where the recording eng. did this halfway through the project. Fucking pain in the ass cause you have to do each file separately. Couldn't find a batch process for this in wavelab.

Also, I would open the original project first and bounce all tracks to equal file lengths with the same start position. Who know what will happen to the arrangement if you leave all the punches.
 
daveotero said:
Fucking pain in the ass cause you have to do each file separately. Couldn't find a batch process for this in wavelab.

Go to Download.com and search for Goldwave - it's a free audio editing program that will let you batch process files and change their sampling rates, formats etc. It's pretty quick at it too.

Steve
 
I solved it! Originally I thought Mr. Sneap was wrong (but who's ever heard of that!?) because I'd tried to import a bounce into a new session, but the trick to making things work out was to NOT convert the 48k bounce before importing it into the new 44.1 session. I actually hadn't even realized until today that Pro Tools even gives you the option of not converting something before importing it. Anyhow...I'm glad I didn't have to bother with any of that analog transfer crap or worry about recreating the file headers or whatever. Thanks to all of you who relplied, and Andy, :worship:

EDIT: I just realized that carl@laruso.com told me to do exactly that... At the time I still did not understand that Pro Tools would let you import without converting. Thanks to you too, laruso.