Topic: Microtrack recording is condensed

[Elana]

I seem to have had nothing but problems w/ my microtrack.  Luckily I run my jb3 at the same time as backup.

This is the 2nd time I recall this happening w/ the microtrack (version 1).

I recorded a show tonight, and the timer was counting very slowly.  At about 30 mins it said it had recorded 13 mins.  When I transferred it to my computer now, the entire wav file was condensed.  It showed 50 minutes of record time when it was close to 2 hours.  And when I play it, it sounds very fast and like chipmunks.

Any clue what is causing this?  This is the 2nd time it's happened.  The first time was shortly after I first got it.

Thanks.

[it-goes-to-eleven]

The sample rate is wrong.  You'll need to change the header parameters to the correct rate, but not actually resample the audio.

[Elana]

thanks for the tip.  How would I go about doing that?

[flipp]

Read the first post in the following thread for how do that in many audio editors. Following posts list a few other options and a couple of ways to do it if you aren't using Windows.

http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=80888.0

[Chris K]

What was you input into the MT? Digital or analog. The issue you had leaves me to believe you were running digital. If so make sure your pre is on and connected to you microtrack PRIOR to turning on the microtrack. If you need to reconfigure the recording settings on the MT (bit rate), then you must reboot the MT.

See my post in this thread:

http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=118196.msg1621623#msg1621623

and some user tips I compiled in the same thread:

1) make sure you have a decent external battery pack
2) reformat the card before a new recording session, but only after transferring your audio files of the MT and onto your computer, and after making a backup copy (dvd/cd etc)
3) make sure your preamp is on and feeding a spdif signal PRIOR to turning on your MT
4) if you need to change the bit rate on the device (from 16 to 24) then you should reboot the MT
5) use the HOLD button while recording, hit the volume button to turn on the backlight
6) have fun (most important)

[Elana]

Thanks for the advice, I always do 1, 2, and 5 (and of course 6), and I generally just record 16/44.1 so I've never changed the rate myself.  Problem was that last night I was in a really awkward situation and my flashlight was in the bag I had stashed away elsewhere, so I accidentally plugged the spdif into the "in" on my UA-5 instead of the out.  I realized that right after I started recording so I pulled it out and put it in the "out" and I got a signal.  I guess that was my mistake, not restarting the MT.

Thankfully the jb3 copy came out just fine so I won't need to use the mt version, but if I have the problem again I'll adjust the parameters for the sample rate.