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Gear / Technical Help => Ask The Tapers => Topic started by: foofanatic on September 04, 2009, 11:27:30 PM

Title: Minidisc Speed Problem
Post by: foofanatic on September 04, 2009, 11:27:30 PM

Hi guys!!  Have something that's baffling me and I thought you guys might be able to help.  I am transferring some MDs for a friend of mine that were recorded in 1997.  4 out of the 5 shows are just fine but one of them is severely sped up.  The songs are way faster than what they are normally played at and the pitch is higher because of it. 

I asked the taper if he knew of anything he did wrong and he said he was at a loss.  From the time he taped this show it was like that even though he taped it in real time at the show and it's not a copy of the master or something.  These are the direct master discs that were recorded at the show that night.

I am trying to fix this and get it back to normal. Has anyone ever seen this phenomenon before in minidiscs and if so can someone help me to correct the problem?  Or am I just totally assed out and need to transfer them and deal with them sped up as is?  Any help any of you guys could give would be VERY much appreciated.

Thanks guys!

Title: Re: Minidisc Speed Problem
Post by: Brian Skalinder on September 05, 2009, 02:30:19 PM

The WAV header and data sample rates are probably different.  Solution is to fix the WAV header, and leave the data alone.  More here:

http://taperssection.com/index.php/topic,117279.0.html

Title: Re: Minidisc Speed Problem
Post by: DaveH on September 05, 2009, 09:23:43 PM

Not sure if this might help, but you could run the program through the Audacity program slowing down the speed, I used that to speed up an old Alice Cooper show where the tape was dragging and it worked out pretty well. (Just in case, Audacity is a free program you can use to record the show in real time from the MD recorder.) Hope this helps, I'm still a bit of a novice at all of this myself.

Title: Re: Minidisc Speed Problem
Post by: sml42 on September 06, 2009, 12:09:19 PM

how are you transferring the files from MD? by capturing the optical output into your sound card, or ... ?

does it still sound sped up if played 'normally'? (ie. listen through headphones attached directly to your MD deck)

Title: Re: Minidisc Speed Problem
Post by: foofanatic on September 07, 2009, 02:04:01 PM

I have tried playing it in 3 different MD players and I get the same result.  I'm transferring using my Sony JE520 home deck out through a Monster SPDIF cable and into my Turtle Beach Montego sound card.  I have never had problems with any others, just this one.

The taper said that his early '97 recordings were all fine (which I can vouch for because I have copies of them in hand) and his later '97 to early '98 recordings are all sped up.  I don't know if something went awry in the recorder itself and saved the information wrong??? 

I used Audacity and slowed the speed down and matched it to the other sources we have for these shows.  It turned out just fine.  I was just wondering if anyone had ever heard of something like this? I have ran across this with analog cassettes that I've transferred but never on an MD.  Just wondering if I might run into this in the future or if this is just a freak thing.

Title: Re: Minidisc Speed Problem
Post by: sml42 on September 07, 2009, 04:17:23 PM

by how much did you have to slow it down? if it was a factor of 2, perhaps the show was recorded in mono by mistake?

then, it would depend on the player as to what happens on playback.

see http://minidisc.org/minidisc_faq.html#_q76

Title: Re: Minidisc Speed Problem
Post by: kylieshotpants on September 09, 2009, 02:39:04 PM

could it be the disc were recorded in the lp2 format, does your unit only play sp?