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vocals out of sync with instruments when transferred to computer


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This may be fun to explain...got a curious problem that I haven't experienced ever before.

 

I cut all the instrumental tracks for our atmospheric rock band, Nectar -- bass, drums, guitar, etc. on the analog multitrack, and had only one or two tracks left over for the vocals. Our vocalist wanted to experiment and try a lot of different things, but since one of my soundcards on the computer is on the fritz, I couldn't record the vocals on the computer because the vocalist can't monitor the instruments.

 

So, what we did instead is I made an instrumental mix and dumped it to two tracks of my analog multitrack. I cut the vocals, now having ten extra tracks to experiment with. I dumped the instrumental mix to the computer, and then dumped the vocals to computer. For years, I have done this and *never* had a problem re-syncing the vocals with the instruments. This time, however, the vocals are not syncing at all, and are constantly late even though I start the vocals right on the money. What I have had to do is go in and chop the lines apart and set them in where they are supposed to go, which sounds fine. Nothing sounds out of pitch -- it's just out of time.

 

Now, the curious bit is that I also did the same thing with tingshas (percussion) and cellos. *Only* the vocals are out of time. The vocals were not dumped to computer all at one time, but over a period of three months.

 

I was wondering if there are any theories to look out for in the future should this happen again. I did a lot of editing and corrected it, but we are completely baffled by how this happened.

 

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Ken/Eleven Shadows/d i t h er/nectar

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music*travel photos*tibet*lots of stuff

"Sangsara" "Irian Jaya" & d i t h er CDs available!

http://www.elevenshadows.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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i'm not sure if i followed your process entirely. however, are the vocals still on the analog along with the backing? can you transfer them again? this is what i do to make sure things line up. on the analog (or adat) i punch in a percussion sound (cowbell, clave, whatever) from a drum machine 2 or 3 seconds before the start of the tune on ALL tracks. when i get the tracks in the computer, i just make sure all they line 'em all up.

 

btw, how off are the vocals? it might be possible that the analog tape stretched a bit making for a small timing issue when going back to the original... dunno

 

-d gauss

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>> btw, how off are the vocals? it might be possible that the analog tape stretched a bit making for a small timing issue when going back to the original... dunno>>

 

They start off okay, and then by the time the second verse has kicked in (or anything past the first verse), it's really noticeably off. Sometimes even the last part of the first verse is off as well. I wondered too if the analog tape is stretching, but then, that wouldn't explain why the cellos and the percussion fit well.

 

And yes, I put a percussion hit across all the tracks simultaneously to sync them up. And yes also to the fact that the vocals are still on the analog multitrack, so I can transfer them again, which I actually did for a previous song (nothing happened).

 

In a separate issue, what I've also noticed happening on drive E is that there are little "hiccups" (glitches where a very tiny amount of the audio is missing, resulting in basically a "skip" in the audio) in some of the audio that was transferred. I have not heard this so far on Drive D, though. This may or not be related, I don't know. I don't really know enough yet to determine whether this is a HD issue or a digital transfer issue or something else. I've just had to enter the audio in again until it stopped hiccuping, and am now just using the other drive.

 

It's an OLD computer. I am going to be breaking the piggy bank and getting a G4 within about two weeks or so, so I probably won't have these issues again (for a while). It's just really curious because I've been transfering stuff over from analog multitrack and syncing it up in this fashion for years and have never had a problem, and now, I've had three songs in a row that have had problems, but just in the vocals!!! I'm usually pretty good at troubleshooting, but this one has me really baffled.

 

In either case, I just have one more song to go, and it's relatively short, so even if I have to do a lot of slicing to get things to line up again, at least it's not a 22-minute opus!! Thanks for the help and suggestions.

 

 

 

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Ken/Eleven Shadows/d i t h er/nectar

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

music*travel photos*tibet*lots of stuff

"Sangsara" "Irian Jaya" & d i t h er CDs available!

http://www.elevenshadows.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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hmm... i noticed you are using saw[lus. by any chance were the vocals recorded at a diff sample rate or bit depth? i know in sawpro, sometimes what you think you recorded it at and what it really is aren't always the same since saw does playback coversion on the fly....
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No, I don't think so. I've recorded at a different bit rate before, and the vocals were in a completely different key, and the difference was extremely noticeable. My card only does 16-bit, I think, and anyway, it's a direct digital transfer from the DAT. Ahhh, I don't know. I guess I shouldn't worry about it too much since after this song, I will probably be working on a new computer system, which I am really, really excited about. The PC will be retired from doing digital audio, and probably live out the remainder of its years doing things like word processing and maybe updating the web site, depending on how much stuff I have the G4 take over in the next few months.

 

Ken/Eleven Shadows

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