Session playing back at the wrong speed

[ultrajoebot]

A friend of mine recorded some drums for me using an older version of Pro Tools, and he had to set the session to 44k to save memory I think. I opened the session at home and it's playing slightly slower than it was recorded. Does anyone know how to adjust it so it will play back at the right speed? I feel like it's probably a pretty easy fix but I haven't been able to figure it out yet. Thanks!

[albee1952]

If its playing slow, then I suspect it was recorded at 48K and you are trying to play it at 44.1. You should try importing the audio into a 48K session to see what happens.

[ultrajoebot]

Hmm I tried starting a new 48k session and imported the recorded audio but it's playing back at the same speed. Could it be something else that's causing it to play slowly? I'd hate to have to record all the drums again but this hasn't happened to me before and it totally has me scratching my head.

[dogon]

Do you have another external (digital) device connected to your system that may be dictating the sample rate to Pro Tools?

or

Maybe, this was the case when you recorded.

Possible scenario.....
While recording, the session in pro tools could be set to one setting
But, if you are using a digital device (connected digitally) with PT in slave mode...
The session will run at the sample rate that the external device is set to, regardless of how pro tools is set (as it is slaving)

Fix
Import session data - and change sample rate on import

hope this makes sense
Hope this helps
dogon

[ultrajoebot]

Yeah, that totally makes sense. I don't think anything I have in place would be dictating the sample rate, unless the mbox does? I tried importing the session data every conceivable way (44 to 48, 44 to 44, 48 to 44, 48 to 48), but they all sound the same somehow. Huh. I think I'll check with the guy who recorded it and see if I can find out if anything else was wonky in the way it was tracked. Thanks for your help.

[dogon]

are you using the SRC (sample rate conversion) section of the import session data window?

[ultrajoebot]

Yeah, I've tried setting the source sample rate at 44.1 and 48 (and also the destinatoin sample rate), but both ways seem to yield the same result. Strangeness.

[David MacKenzie]

I suspect that your friend recorded the session using an external clock source set to 48 KHz but the PT session was 44.1 KHz. So they are 48 KHz files that are set to play at 44.1 Khz. We've done that a few times when using external A-D's.

The best way I know of to fix that is a free program called Soundhack (from soundhack.com). Soundhack can edit the audio files' headers to change the sample rate field.

Consolidate your audio regions as much as you can, to minimize the number of audio files you need to fix. Remove any unneeded audio files from the session.

Save a copy of your PT session as 48 KHz in WAV format. You won't be using the converted audio files, just the PTF file. Also save a copy of the session at 44.1 in WAV format, because Soundhack only works on WAV files IIRC. We'll be running Soundhack on these 44.1 WAV copies of the audio files, to leave your original messed-up session untouched just in case something goes wrong.

Quit Pro Tools. Run Soundhack, Open a "44.1" WAV file from your session, and hit command-H or use the menu Hack>Header Change. In the Sample Rate box, replace "44100" with "48000" and click Apply. Close the audio file. Repeat for every audio file in your session.

Trash the Audio Files folder in your 48 KHz copy of the PT session and replace it with the Soundhack'd Audio Files.

Run Pro Tools and open the 48 KHz session. You may need to relink the audio files because their signatures won't match, but you should have what you need to get the session playing back at the correct speed, which is 48 KHz. This procedure is easiest when you haven't done much editing yet--the simpler the session, the less work to fix it.