Pitch change on conversion....

Hummm... ok so I have two live gig type events to play in less than 2 weeks..... It's been years since I have played and haven't decided yet if I like this idea or not.  Playing live....

So I am looking for the easiest way to do this. Obviously planning to use my project tracks with vocals muted. 

So I thought.... load waves on my Sansa, but it seems it doesn't play waves.... so convert to 320 MP3 and play them.  So I thought I'd test it.  Tuned the guitar last night and played from the studio project...all is good.  Today, I plugged in the Sansa and played from there...... In the name of all that is holy!!!!   WHAT?  Seems the files have been dropped a few cents in pitch by the conversion process. At first I though maybe it's because the sansa is a battery powered device and the wheels spin a bit slower... then I thought about that...... nahhhhhh..... 

Back up plan... burn CD's and carry my guitar and a disk to the gigs. that is  much easier than using my lappy or the sansa it seems. 

I was not aware that converting waves to MP3 resulted in a pitch change. 

thoughts, observations, comments? 

I wouldn't rely on just a burned CD Herb, I've seen that go horribly wrong. Wouldn't the laptop be a better option?

We used to use DAT tapes.

They never skipped, never sped up or slowed down, always sounded great ...

I know this doesn't help, but your thread reminded me of what we used to do and I thought I'd throw it out there.

Did you convert the wav to mp3 via a different program, or did you directly export to mp3 from original project in Sonar?  I got nothin', but I'm curious.

And a "Sansa"... I don't know what that is?  As in Sansa Disk/memory stick?

There's a tried and true technique performers use to cover up imperfections like playing out of key.  Backup dancers. 

It doesn't have to make sense.  More dancing = better music, roight?

A long time ago, someone gave me an mp3 player. I only used it a few times, but I do remember there was a weird setting that allowed you to speed up or slow down audio-- I suppose in case you just HAD to listen to "Blue Velvet" but we're going out for a run and needed to speed it up to 120bpm.  I dunno...  

Slower, depending on how its processed (and I'm totally making this up here, btw) might knock it a few cents off? 


(I will not say that you need a better mp3 player.  I will NOT.) ;)

is it possible your ear pitch has changed instead? it is happening sometimes e.g. during cold or in very humid weather.
Never heard actually pitch could change during conversion, quality yeas but pitch...

Greg.... Tea Party rally Oct 13 noon W Nash st Wilson on the library lawn..... doing 2 of my more political compositions..... and then later that evening in Youngsville .... the Beano festival which my buddy Wolf started is happeing on a farm up there..... and since I wrote that song for Wolf.... I guess I need to be there and play it for the crowd. 

You are welcome at both..... I'll get you in to the second one if you want to go.  The first is free. 

I use some decent ear buds and it sounds good.... great fidelity. It's literally out of tune (flat) by a noticeable amount. I may just bite the bullet and do the laptop source thing.  

My Sansa Clip+ plays wavs, flacs and all sorts of uncompressed audio in various formats.
 
Perfectly well.
 
I'd not use it for a live situation though, it's just too fiddly to get at what you want in a hurry.  Not sure what the issue you are having there but I'd wager it's not the device.
 
The idea of the playback being too slow or drifting sounds like ghost stories from the cassette era to me, it doesn't take much to get an accurate clock pulse to run a digital device these days.  The 'clock' or 'oscilattor' isn't a critical component it's an essential one, a digital device cannot even function without it, so much so even the ones found in top end gear never amount to much more than a few cents worth. 
 
Put it this way the clock in your mp3 player will probably be more accurate than the one in your tuner which is likely working on an 11,025 Hz sample of the input it is 'hearing'.
 
It always amuses me the 'high-end' gear argument when a lot of that stuff is powered by clocks furnished by vendors such as Realtek or their ilk.
 
If the device is running at the wrong speed it will at least consistently run at the wrong speed, not as a malfunction of the clock but much like a cheap digital watch will keep perfect time once you've adjusted it, because the current sent to it, regulated by the supporting components, is out of whack.
 
FWIW the output coming out of my similar device via the D/A converter (the phones out socket) lines up pretty much perfectly with the project that created it. 
 
Here's a little something for Mike to ponder but for practical purpose Herb, I'd follow James' suggestion.
 
http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ee100/docs/Chapter8.pdf

I think a good test would be to run two MP3 devices with small speakers, start the same .mp3 on both at as close to the same time as you can, then see if the songs get out of sync.  Then you'll know the player is dodgy.

Come to think of it...  I've did this once between my PC and an iPod.  They were NOT playing at the same speed.

The tuner I use matched the calibrated A-440 of several other tuners and the midi tuning in the DAW. All that is dead on accurate for recording and tuning my guitars to pitch. 

I export the project as a normal wave and then convert it to MP3. In the DAW the entire time..... I can play back either the wave or the converted MP3 in the DAW and it's all still in tune.  I have dropped the MP3 back into the project from time to time and 100% match up in every way. 

I load to a USB stick and transfer to my Lappy...still in tune.... now I open the MP3 in Windows Media Player... the program I use to load the Sansa..... still in tune..... now sync to the sansa...and it's out of tune. 

I think the clock would likely be the issue..... no problem.... this is not something I do often..... but come to think about it, a few years back when the sansa was new, I did this with a church sponsored event in a prison ministry and I recall the guitar being out of tune with the music after tuning it and thinking it was the temperature changes that was throwing the tuning out so quickly. Now it all kinda makes sense. 
Note to self: Don't use the Sansa for tracks. 

You should see this one....it's literally held together with electrician's tape.... the scotch tape didn't work,  well put it this way.... not for very long..... and the back which had some non-slip gray stuff on it....well the gray stuff is gone and it's shiny silver and smooth..... and.... yeah it gets better, the display has a small chip/crack in it and on occasion....after I charge it or randomly when I turn it on....the screen goes white and stays that way sometimes for a few minutes, and sometimes for days. I can play the tunes in the play list I'm on but can't see the display, and sometimes it's scrambled. 

But it works. 

Maybe all that is a clue that using this particular device for a gig in front of people should be re-considered..... huh? 

Guitarhacker


You should see this one....it's literally held together with electrician's tape.... the scotch tape didn't work,  well put it this way.... not for very long..... and the back which had some non-slip gray stuff on it....well the gray stuff is gone and it's shiny silver and smooth..... and.... yeah it gets better, the display has a small chip/crack in it and on occasion....after I charge it or randomly when I turn it on....the screen goes white and stays that way sometimes for a few minutes, and sometimes for days. I can play the tunes in the play list I'm on but can't see the display, and sometimes it's scrambled. 

But it works. 

Maybe all that is a clue that using this particular device for a gig in front of people should be re-considered..... huh? 

Yes, I wouldn't be seen in public with mine just in case someone like McQ came along. I hide it on the inside of my jacket
 
I'd be mortified, what would they think of me?  I couldn't handle the shame...
 
I'd use something more robust for sure in that situation for sure even though mine does playback at the required speed.

Jonbouy

...but the difference was good enough for hammered dulcimers.

A good digital audio engineer would never let his dulcimers drink too much.