so, this is going to be very time consuming. i'm getting similar timing issues with lining up the individual tracks, but it's much more subtle - over the course of this five minute song, it seems to be off by about 20-30% of a second, in total. you can't tell for short parts, but it adds up. there's two ways to deal with that - either by stretching the whole thing (trial and error) or by cutting it up into multiple parts and staggering them manually. that is, presuming that i'm right in thinking it's a problem with the whole file, rather than an issue of random errors in sampling.

the other way around it is to take it in from tape as one file, but the whole point is being able to manipulate the separate tracks.

this is more resolvable than trying to line up identical parts because there's an acceptable level of error. but, it's still going to be a while...

i've largely decided to create two singles, for sure, but i'm not sure how to catalog them yet. i may have the first half of the confused single up by tonight but, considering that i'm going to have to build the entire midi file from almost scratch, this is going to take roughly a week to complete.

when i initially created this, i overprogrammed the drums in a way that conflicted with the incoming synths, partly because i didn't have a synth when i programmed it. once i got the synth, it just created a stew of dissonance. so, i sent the file out through mono, which toned it down a bit. before i sold the ry30 (which i deeply regret), i saved all my tracks from the ry30 (in stereo) direct into the soundcard. so, the original recordings are all in mono, but i have a stereo version that i'd like to mix in.

unfortunately, the two versions are out of sync. i understand why and can try to explain it a little. it has to do with the difference in how analog and digital waves store data, and is reproducible in general. you can try it yourself if you have the right gear. all you'd need to do is take a vinyl or cassette version of something and send it in to your soundcard, then take a digital cd-rip of the same song. obviously, it has to be the same master and everything. then, compare the tracks. you'll notice that they may differ in length by as much as about 0.5 second per minute. another way you can verify this is by looking up old songs on youtube - look for beatles songs or something. you'll notice the time varies by a few seconds, depending on the source of the upload.

i'm experiencing this because i sent the digital signal to tape and back to digital when i created it, and just sent it straight from digital when i saved the drum parts.

now, you're not going to hear a significant difference in this if you do an a/b. it's a microtone of a microtone in shift; indiscernible to human ears. but, it creates a problem when it comes to mixing the source.

i'm going to try and line it up, but this is an almost impossible task that i will no doubt have to concede defeat on. what that means is that the electronic version i wanted to do is going to have to be built from scratch. and what that means is that i'm almost certainly going to be doing a "confused" single, which will compile versions from the 96 demo, the 98 demo and the new (instrumental) construction i'm about to make.

the process requires trying to time-shift (in this case compress) the drum machine part to the exact length on the tape, which can only be done throgh trial and error. the difference over 5 minutes is about two seconds. if i'm off by the slightest fraction of a second, it will become noticeable by the end of the song. and, you get weird phasing issues when you do this kind of thing, too.

on top of that, there's no baseline - and the drum machine part from tape also includes multiple synths. like, if i knew they came from the same file, i could pinpoint it by finding markers. that's not an option here, because they even came in through different soundcards...

given that i know that this is virtually impossible, i'm not going to focus too much time on it.