Clip plays music slowly, lower pitch.

MP3 players Sansa Clip | Clip+
22

@dave61430 wrote:
Like the gapless playback which I completely fail to understand (aren’t there meant to be pauses between tracks)

You may be too young to remember listening to “albums.”  Especially “concept albums.”

At one time, musicians released these things called “albums.”  The idea was that the entire album had an idea, theme or story, and in order to convey that idea, theme, or story, it was necessary to listen to the songs in order.

Sometimes on these “albums,” one song would flow right into another, without a pause, or “gap.”  The musician did this for reasons which are no longer understood, as doing this would often render each individual song incapable of being used in advertisements for the purpose of selling food or clothes.  There are very old people in this forum who, for nostalgic purposes, like to hear these songs flow into each other as originally intended.

In my next programme on BBC 1, I will describe a period of time in ancient history when human beings had to choose whether to tune into Very High Frequencies, or Ultra High Frequencies, in order to watch television.

Message Edited by PromisedPlanet on 09-03-2009 03:20 PM

23

@promisedplanet wrote:

  There are very old people in this forum who, for nostalgic purposes, like to hear these songs flow into each other as originally intended.

 

Hey! I’m not even 40! :stuck_out_tongue:

24

The pitch problem on the Clip has not been improved by any firmware released so far.

The extra length of time the tracks play is of no concern to me, that is just a side affect of the fact that the songs are being played back at the wrong pitch.

Playing back music off pitch/out of tune bothers me a lot because I am a musician used to hearing things at proper pitch.

There is a reason musicians “tune up” before a performance.

While it is understood that most clip users are unsophisticated consumers that are not musicians or engineers,

there is also a vocal minority who are, and expect consumer products like the Clip to operate within reasonable tolerances.

Like playing back the music at the correct speed and pitch.

We are trying to keep the company honest for everyones benefit.

Basic

They should fix this with a firmware update.

No excuses.

It’s that simple.

25

“The extra length of time the tracks play is of no concern to me, that is just a side affect of the fact that the songs are being played back at the wrong pitch.”

wavydavy, I’m not sure I understand.  If the songs are being played at the wrong pitch such that it results in a difference of 1 second over 4 minutes (0.4%) … you can actually *hear* that?

Sprach zarathustra?

26

Thanks for your question Promised Planet.

I understand your confusion.

Let me explain in more detail.

Speed and time are related in music playback because when you play music at a faster speed, the song ends sooner and sounds as though it is being played at a higher pitch. (for an extreme example, think Alvin and the Chipmunks).

When a musical instrument is tuned up, it is done to an international standard reference.

for example the note A should be exactly 440 Hz.

The reason for this is so all musicians can play their instruments together wherever they travel, and have them sound good together (in tune with each other).

Thus, all properly recorded music played back at the correct pitch/speed should have the music be in tune (at the proper pitch) with any other properly tuned instruments.

The Clip plays back music at the wrong pitch/speed so that it is noticeably out of tune when compared to original recording.

This is most noticeable to people like me with critical listening skills, who play a musical instrument along with the music from the clip.

Jamming with the music coming from the clip is like playing two instruments that are out of tune with each other  :cry:

Unfortunately it is impractical to retune instruments to mach them to the Clip, especially instruments like the piano. This also would require you to retune again for normal playing.

The reason the problem has gone unnoticed by most people is, that they would not normally play the Clip in an environment where they could also hear the correct version at the same time to compare to, and they don’t play a musical instrument along with it.

So you see that it is not the change in playback time that bothers me, as much as the “off pitch/out of tune with the rest of the world” problem which is unacceptable to me and which could be fixed by Sansa with a firmware update.

No other portable Mp3 or CD player I’m aware of has this problem, and I have had quite a few over the years.

I hope this explanation helps non musicians appreciate how serious this problem is for us, and why we are so vocal about it.

After all, We are the people who make the music you might like to enjoy listening to on your Clip.

Throw us a bone :wink:

Message Edited by wavydavy on 09-03-2009 06:57 PM

27

Yes, I just tested and the Clip is slower than the computer when I play the same song on the Clip and the computer.  It gets out of sync in about 5 seconds.

So yes, this problem should be fixed… and I agree it is unacceptable if it’s been known for a long time.  Still, it’s imperceptable by the vast majority of people.

Why not transcode to 48000 in the meantime?  Seems like a decent workround and one that I probably will do because I’m now certain that my lackluster gym workouts can be directly traced back to this slowed down music.

Message Edited by itsMylife on 09-03-2009 07:26 PM

28

itsMylife wrote: I’m now certain that my lackluster gym workouts can be directly traced back to this slowed down music.
 

 

Oh come on now…that’s just silly! It’s not that much slower…you’re just making excuses for not working out hard enough. It’s called rationalization, what you’re doing there. :stuck_out_tongue::wink:

30

@miikerman wrote:
Actually, this is an intentional exercise design feature of the Clip:  by a tune taking slightly longer to play, the user exercising exercises slightly more than he or she thinks.  Over the course of the year, this will result in extra weight loss, with no extra conscious user effort.

I take my nightly walk while catching up on the day’s political news via podcast on the Clip.  The tempo of the host’s speech has no effect…how fast I walk depends on how I feel, not how fast they talk. Of course, if there’s a story  that makes me angry, then I might walk a little faster, and mutter things under my breath. :smiley:

32

@itsmylife wrote:

Yes, I just tested and the Clip is slower than the computer when I play the same song on the Clip and the computer.  It gets out of sync in about 5 seconds.

 

So yes, this problem should be fixed… and I agree it is unacceptable if it’s been known for a long time.  Still, it’s imperceptible by the vast majority of people.

 

Why not transcode to 48000 in the meantime?  Seems like a decent workaround and one that I probably will do because I’m now certain that my lackluster gym workouts can be directly traced back to this slowed down music.

 

 

Message Edited by itsMylife on 09-03-2009 07:26 PM

For me there are few problems related to transcodeing to 48kHz

First, there is a reduction in sound quality caused by ripping a CD at 48 instead of it’s native 44.1 kHz sample rate.

Second, There is a reduction in sound quality caused by reencodeing Mp3 to Mp3 from 44.1 to 48 kHz songs for which you no longer have original CDs.

Lastly, it would take an enormous effort to reencode my entire music collection and require another large hard drive to store the reduced quality transcoded Mp3s.

33

@wavydavy wrote:

For me there are few problems related to transcodeing to 48kHz

First, there is a reduction in sound quality caused by ripping a CD at 48 instead of it’s native 44.1 kHz sample rate.

Second, There is a reduction in sound quality caused by reencodeing Mp3 to Mp3 from 44.1 to 48 kHz songs for which you no longer have original CDs.

Lastly, it would take an enormous effort to reencode my entire music collection and require another large hard drive to store the reduced quality transcoded Mp3s.

I can certainly understand why you would not want to go through that.

34

Is it possible that this will have been fixed for the Clip+?  If so, I might just return this player as soon as I can and wait until it comes out.

35

Can anyone recommend a good tool for transcoding a 44100 MP3 to 48000.  I tried Foobar with no luck so far…  I also tried BeSweet but that introduced clicking.

36

@xylias wrote:
Is it possible that this will have been fixed for the Clip+?  If so, I might just return this player as soon as I can and wait until it comes out.

There is now a Clip+ board.

Please read the posts towards the end of this thread:

http://forums.sandisk.com/sansa/board/message?board.id=clipplus&thread.id=40

37

You can rip CDs at 48kHz with iTunes (will work on windows to)

You can transcode Mp3 to Mp3 with XLD on a Mac.

Happy Trails…

Wavy

Message Edited by wavydavy on 09-04-2009 02:41 PM

38

I just did the same thing. I only see about 2 seconds on a 4 min song. Given that it’s **bleep** hard to start off in sync, add a second for operator error.

In response to an earlier post, I’m probably older than he who mentioned age, however, I was not aware of the particular point he made about one tune or track flowing into the other. You could obtain that affect with something like mp3edit but it would be a pain and impose a limit on navigation. I can much more readily appreciate the problem for those who would play an instrument along with the recording, but for the vast majority of us the problem is academic, however, that should not be taken as an excuse not to fix the problem if it a firmware issue.

40

I don’t have a MAC… and want to transcode MP3 to MP3 rather than re-rip. 

41

@itsmylife wrote:

I don’t have a MAC… and want to transcode MP3 to MP3 rather than re-rip. 

You’ll lose some sound quality if you do that.

42

The wrong speed, wrong pitch playback is unacceptable for a modern digital device.

My cheap digital watch is a hundred times more accurate.

This product is unusable by anyone who plays a musical instrument,

and wants to play along with the songs on their Clip+, for fun or to learn new songs. 

Who in there right mind wants to listen to there music played back off pitch/speed?

Why do most reviewers overlook this important quality problem?

The only way to keep manufacturers honest is to boycott willfully defective products like the Clip and Clip +.

The problem is most noticeable with any file format encoded at 44.1kHz sample rate, or a multiple of same.

43

@wavydavy wrote:

The wrong speed, wrong pitch playback is unacceptable for a modern digital device.

My cheap digital watch is a hundred times more accurate.

This product is unusable by anyone who plays a musical instrument,

and wants to play along with the songs on their Clip+, for fun or to learn new songs. 

 

Who in there right mind wants to listen to there music played back off pitch/speed?

 

Why do most reviewers overlook this important quality problem?

 

The only way to keep manufacturers honest is to boycott willfully defective products like the Clip and Clip +.

 

The problem is most noticeable with any file format encoded at 44.1kHz sample rate, or a multiple of same.

I am sympathetic to your cause, but as to the one question you over-sized up there…the fact remains that a lot of us ( probably including the reviewers ) simply do not hear the slight irregularity. Sure, I would like them to fix it. But you are over-estimating how many people are bothered by it. 

44

I am not an expert musician, in fact I doubt that I will ever be able to tell apart one note from each other, so it’s clear that I won’t be bothered if my Clip has this problem. I haven’t noticed and I’ll never will, it should be really horrible for me to notice it.

But I just can’t understand why you are spending so much time posting on this forum about your problem instead of returning the Clip at the very first moment.

I know that if I buy something and it’s broken because it distorts the sound then I would return it ASAP, I won’t be bothered to go to a forum, register and start writing posts over and over again waiting for the manufacturer to fix the problem.