Help!! Anyone know anything about "Audacity" ?

[rnbsmum]

Hi, I'm hoping that someone will help me get a backing track adapted for a carol service on Monday. Am trying to transfer a track and transpose it down a tone, but when I import the track and play it it is only 2 seconds or so long and an earpiercing shriek. Anyone any ideas where I'm going wrong? Have seen a students of mine do it but can't work it out.
Am also going to post this in music.

Thanks in advance for any words of wisdom :)

My DH does but he's out at the moment. I will point him in your direction when he gets back, if you like.

Fantastic!! Thanks very much - would be greatly appreciated.

Hello, sorry, he didn't get back till late (client Christmas dinner) and was at work late yesterday, I will get him to look at this now.

What is the format of the backing track? How does its filename end? In a '.wav' or a '.mp3' or a '.mid' or something similar. If it's a '.mid', then it's a MIDI file. Rather than actually record the soundwaves, this file simply tells an electronic instrument or synthesiser to play a group of notes (effectively it says "play middle C, then wait, then play D" etc).

If Audacity doesn't realise that this MIDI file is a list of instructions, but tries to play it back as a soundwave itself, then I you'd just get garbled rubbish.

To play back and transpose a MIDI file, you need a MIDI sequencing program, which understands the lists of instructions and is able to create the notes on demand. You can get a number of these - are you on a Mac or PC?

Thanks so much for that. I am importing from iTunes so think it is mp3 or even mp4 with the new version. I'm using a PC. Will have a try at saving it in different formats and see if that helps.

Hi! just to let you know, I worked it out!! Service was great, choir sang really well and the backing track worked a treat. Just needed to convert the track to a wav file on the preferences (I think!) area.

Thank you so much for your help x