How can I reduce background volume during voiceover?

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

This is on version 2.3.2.

I am trying to record a CD of tracks I’m putting into the software, and recording a voiceover - bit like a DJ. Trying to keep it simple.

I assume I could click Record, turn up the Mic volume to speak, and turn down the Audio playing so I can be heard clearly - like you hear on the radio.

Sadly I don’t see any means of doing that?
There are various Volume sliders but they either do nothing or they turn it ALL down.

Example: with the audio track imported, I get the L and R, and above that a - and +. If I use the top one to go to minus, assuming it would turn that down for me to speak clearly, it would reduce the volume of the background music. It doesn’t.

What am I doing wrong?

2

You can use the envelope tool (https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/envelope_tool.html)
This is the more flexible approach.

or

You could use the Auto Duck effect https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/auto_duck.html
This is not such a flexible approach, but can be very quick to do once you have everything set up.

3

With the envelope tho, once you click Record, the hands are disabled. I want to reduce it at the time i want to speak… can that be done?

4

Not with Audacity.
Audacity is designed for “off-line” editing. That is, you record or import the audio, then edit it.

For live mixing, you could either record the CD and voice at the same time using a mixer (hardware), or you could use a “DAW” program such as Reaper, Cubase, Sonar, Cakewalk, Logic Pro, …

5

I tried Cakewalk, but I cannot fathom how to do the exact same thing: reduce the playback, increase the voiceover.