Cubase 7 Time Stretch Problem...Please Help

[wagtunes]

I really need your help guys.

I've been hired to do a simple project. At least musically it's simple.

Here's the song.



The customer wants me to remix it. He's sent me all the stems. I already know how I'm going to do this. That's not the problem. The problem is, after importing the stems into Cubase 7, they're not the right speed. The original is 4:43 and when importing, it's 5:05. The key has dropped from Amin to a badly out of tune Gmin, so about a whole step down.

I tried time stretching according to the BPM he designated (118) but when I did, it actually made things worse, stretching the track to 6:06.

Obviously, I am doing something wrong. I have never worked with audio stems before where I've had this problem so I don't know how to fix it.

Can somebody please map out the process for me so I can get this to the right tempo.

This is what I did step by step.

Step 1 - Open new project

Step 2 - Set tempo to fixed 118

Step 3 - File import wav, leaving dialogue box alone.

Step 4 - Audio Process Time Stretch. I set the time to 4:39 plus as calculated by Cubase. Apparently it knows. I did each track individually because trying to do it in batch, it doesn't work for some reason.

Okay, when I finished, soloing the vocals, they are in perfect pitch with the Youtube video. However, the instruments are out of tune even though everything is showing as 4:39 in length.

Now, this is what I suspect is the problem.

When I open up the zip file with the wav files, the two vocal tracks are at about 48,000 k. However, all the instrument tracks are at 78,943 k.

Now I've done export of tracks in Cubase before and all the wav files, when exported, regardless of how much data is on each track, exports to the same length because they're all the same time length.

So I suspect that it's the difference in file sizes that is causing this problem.

Can somebody please confirm this?

Thanks.

[Ph-J]

Couldn't it be a 44.1Khz vs 48Khz issue or something like that ?
Is your Cubase project at 48Khz or 44.1 ?

[wagtunes]

Couldn't it be a 44.1Khz vs 48Khz issue or something like that ?
Is your Cubase project at 48Khz or 44.1 ?

My project is at 44.1

Doesn't matter. The wav files should all be the same size on export. That's basic.

[wagtunes]

Couldn't it be a 44.1Khz vs 48Khz issue or something like that ?
Is your Cubase project at 48Khz or 44.1 ?

Okay, I found the problem. The wav files are not the same bit rate.

The vocals are 44.1

The instrument files are 23.04

What the hell do I do to correct for this?

[wagtunes]

Never mind. I took the wav files and ran them through Switch Sound File Converter and now they're all 44.1 and sync up at 118 bpm.

Thanks Ph. You're the one who gave me the clue. When I checked the properties of all the wav files, sure enough, they were in different rates.