So, I recently downloaded Audacity as a way to record some songs. I don’t have the money for professional studio time, and I’m not really experienced at other software.
I have an iMac, the latest OS, and audacity 2.0.5. I’m using a basic USB Microphone to record on. Whenever I record, my vocals don’t line up with the instrumentals I’m recording over making my songs sound terrible and really unprofessional. I’m fairly new to this forum and audacity itself, so I apologize if I’ve unintentionally posted in the wrong section or something like that. Thanks
If you sing perfectly and the resulting song doesn’t line up, that’s Recording Latency. There is an adjustment for that.
Setting up for Overdubbing (what you’re doing) if a little rough, but step through the instructions and post back if you get lost.
The short version is create a click track and play it while you’re recording an overdub with the headset jammed against the microphone.
http://kozco.com/tech/audacity//pix/GTrackEarBuds.jpg
Stop the recording and look at the blue waves. Measure the difference between them and add that to the existing value for Audacity > Preferences > Recording > Latency
http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/pix/superLatencyBefore.jpg
Make a new recording and the two blue waves should line up.
http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/pix/latencyAfter.jpg
Yes, I know. Even the short version is My Eyes Glaze Over. I don’t know of an automatic way to do this.
http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/tutorial_recording_multi_track_overdubs.html
Koz