Audio Different When Bounced

[Ash5975]

I edit a radio show and receive each month's show on a DAT, record them into Pro Tools 6.9.2 with my MBox, edit the shows and then bounce them to the disk as MP3 files. I've noticed lately that the shows will sound fine in Pro Tools, but after I bounce them the show host's voice is much deeper, like it's playing slower. My knowledge of Pro Tools is very basic beyond simple importing, editing and bouncing, so I may be missing something fairly easy...

I record audio in as an SD II file at 44.1kHZ with a 16 Bit depth and +6dB fader gain (I don't know if that info is useful...)

[M.Brane]

after I bounce them the show host's voice is much deeper, like it's playing slower.

That looks like a samplerate issue to me. Double-check your bounce/conversion settings.

I don't use PT for mp3. I import my full bit/samplerate AIFF bounces into iTunes for mp3 conversion.

[Ash5975]

I tried bouncing the audio as an AIFF file, but again, it sounded fine in my headphones when it was bouncing, but when I played it in iTunes, the voice was still deep. I tried changing my conversion quality from better to best with no luck. Any ideas?

[Shawn Simpson]

Your dats are probably 48kHz. You're transferring in locked to the dat's clock at 48k but with your PT sample rate set to 44.1kHz, that means your audio is being tagged with the wrong sample rate. When you bounce, it's not actually running any conversion down on the sample rate so when you play it back, it's like playing back a 45rpm at 40rpm.

Set your session sample rate correctly in the future and you won't have any more problems.