I'm the official MP3 encoder guy for my band and I just put a couple tracks from our demo up here. My bass player listened to it at work in Windows Media Player and told me it sounded like the chipmunk version of the song. The guitarist, also a WMP user, said he didn't have that problem, and I can't imagine what would be causing it. Any ideas? The MP3s are encoded in LAME 3.96.1 using -h -V 5 --athaa-sensitivity 1. WMP is known to have issues with VBR files, but I can't imagine how playing a file too fast would be one of them.

I have noticed similar problems with WMP. But they had nothing to do with MP3s, so I'm afraid this won't be much helpt to you. Anyway... WM Videos that had mono sound were played twice as fast as videos with stereo sound. (The video speed is normally synced to the audio track.)

Strange to say this phenomena disappeared after time.

I have had these problems in the past. They were caused by my machine having messed up codecs.

There are a couple of potential solutions:

(1) try knocking hardware acceleration down a notch on the sound card
(2) check the codecs to see if a strange MP3 codec is installed.

Fairy

I have another suggestion to add to the list. Use another audio player such as Foobar 2000 or even winamp would do a better job then WMP. I had the same problem and tried everything I could think of.. I think it has something to do with the Lame encoder and WMP's Mp3 decoder but I don't know too much about WMP as i use Foobar 2000 more now.

WMP9 and WMP10 atleast here, plays back Lame encoded MP3's properly.

Aussieskier, maybe you should have read my post. Instead of apparently reading only the subject and just spouting off an anti-WMP rant, maybe you should have noticed that these are MP3s intended for widespread distribution to promote my band, and as such, will mostly be played in WMP no matter how much it sucks. I use Foobar2k myself, but since practically nobody else does, I have to make sure the MP3s will play in any player you throw them at, because every person who can't listen to them is someone who won't be coming to one of our shows.

you have not mentioned what version of wmp ur bass player uses. if he doesnt have v9/10 maybe he should move up to that.

u have mentioned urself that wmp has issues with mp3 vbr playback. i really dont see no harm in Aussieskier's suggestion that maybe your bass player switch to another player. i dont see that as anti-wmp rant. if i were u i would ask the person to switch.

anyway, i dont see that happening from the tone of your post. so maybe you can create cbr 128 instead and hope that it works without much problem. if it still doesnt work then maybe the bass player's system is the guilty party

Honestly, what part of "We are putting these MP3s on a web site for people to download" DIDN'T you understand? My bass player changing media players is not going to change the fact that our potential audience is using WMP. Out of the entire Minneapolis-St. Paul area where we play, I am probably the only person who uses Foobar2k. It's just like IE versus the alternative browsers.

The known issue with WMP and VBR files is with not displaying the proper bitrate, and I was wondering if playing them back too fast was another known issue or just a fluke. It looks to me to be just a fluke.

Please try to remain calm. Getting in a huff and shouting is counter-productive. I believe what Aussieskier was saying is that the problem is likely specific to your bassist's computer/media player. I just tried playing your music in Winamp and WMP. Both seemed to give proper playback. Is anyone else unable to playback with WMP? Does the player indicate 268 kpbs?

WMP10 (and maybe WMP9?) has a feature that allows tracks to be played faster/slower than normal. It is accessed in "Enhancements > Play Speed Settings". Maybe that is set somewhere above 1?

No problem here with WMP playing either mp3.

On a side note, is this the demo you mentioned this spring in this loudness race thread? It sounds good, but... a RG of -9.52?

honestly, do u really think i dont understand !!!

i offered u sincere help, and as an observation wrote that none of the posts were into wmp bashing as u had made it out to be.

also it is nothing like IE vs other browsers. winamp was also suggested and i think it has a large enough user base unlike the other browsers.

it seems i just wasted my time in this thread.

anyway, hope u solve ur problem

Cyaneyes, yes, it's that demo, I didn't have any input, unfortunately. Doesn't sound bad to my ears for the most part, but in the bridge of House of Cards when the vocal harmonies come in, they pump the rest of the mix down. =(

Jesus, calm down man. . .

Sorry, it just really annoys me when people try to reply without even bothering to read what they're replying to.

I just tried your songs with WMP10, and they work fine.

Could also be a driver issue - I've had this problem myself when someone managed to install the wrong driver on my work machine. Fixed it by simply uninstalling the driver and rebooting, letting Windows find the correct one itself.

Tried both songs in wmp10 and they work fine. The only problem I can hear of is that there's alot of clipping, especially in the beginning of Abandoned. --- My bad, I had +6db on 55hz line but after removing it, I can still hear it but it's much less appearant.

If you want the widest possible audiance to be able to play your demo, then it pretty much has to be 128kb/s CBR because there are SOME players (however outdated) that will play nothing else. Beyond that, you don't eliminate too many by going vbr or upping the bit rate. On the other hand, you will lose listeners on dial up lines if the file gets too big (www = world wide wait)