multi-track recording guitar

Special Interest Groups Recording Techniques
1

I have a problem.When I want to make many voices in several tracks,I have no problem.I plug my micro USB input into my PC and I can record many times and listening at the same times in order to made the voices correctly,but when I want to do the same with my guitar,thats to say.I want to record many times(first the rhythim guitar and then the picking)I record the fist time and is OK but when I want record over the first with my guitar I can not listening what I´ve recorded on the first track,and I don´t Know why ,because my guitar has the same cable input-USB as my micro and with the second( the micro)I have no problem,I can record several times and listening what I have yet recorded before with my voice but with my guitar it is impossible to listening what I have recorded while the cable of my guitar is plugged.

If anybody is so kind to solve my problem,please do it very slowly and step by step because I ´m quite bad at computer.
Ah ,my coumputer is windows-xp.

Thank you.

2

You are listening through headphones? Where are they plugged in? If they are plugged into the computer sound card then you need to set the computer sound card as the playback device in “Edit menu > Preferences > Audio I/O”.

3

Whether you listen through headphones or speakers can not hear anything what you have recorded before if you unplugged the guitar cable you are able to listening.
Thank you so much for you help .I m going to do what you have told me.Well ,I´ll have to wait to this afternoon because my brother in laww is going to come to my house.As I ´ve told you I´m very bad at computer.
We’ll let you know if we are able to record again and again and hearing what we have recorded before with the guitar.
I appreciate your help, because I love musi and most of all ,recording songs.

Thank you

4

Nothing,I can hear nothing.Once you plug the guitar into my PC (input USB) I can hear nothing,( tracks recorded before,radio,CDS).Whereas I plug my micro into my PC (input USB) I can hear everything,even radios CDS,recorded tracks.

Do not be a thing of the cable from the guitar?

Thank you

5

Try this.

Unplug all microphones, headphones, guitar leads and loudspeakers from your computer(all audio peripherals).

Switch off your computer.
Is this a Desktop or a laptop computer?

Plug in your headphones to the headphone socket on your computer (it may be colour coded green, or it may have a picture of headphones, or it may have a symbol that looks like circles with an arrow coming out of the middle - check your manual if in doubt, just make sure that your headphones are plugged into the headphone socket.

Boot your computer - you should hear the Microsoft jingle when the computer boots up - did you hear that?

Click on the “Start” button and find the “Control Panel” icon - open up the Windows Control Panel.

The Windows Control Panel has 2 different interfaces -
If you are using the “Category View”, click on “Sounds Speech and Audio Devices”, then on “Sounds and Audio Devices”.
If you are using the “Classic View”, double click on “Sounds and Audio Devices”.

It should look something like this:
properties.png
You will see that there are several “tabs” on the “Sounds and Audio Devices” Properties Window. On the First tab (as shown in the picture above, make sure that the “Place Volume in Takskbar” has a tick - if not, select it now and click “Apply”.

If you click on the “Advanced” button, it will open up the “Windows Mixer” - you can also open this from the yellow loudspeaker icon on the taskbar at the lower right corner of your desktop near the clock. We will want to use the Windows Mixer later.

Click on the “Audio” tab and it should look something like this:
audio-devices.png
The “Sound Playback” and “Sound Recording” devices should be set to your sound card. Remember (or write down) how to get to this “Audio devices setup screen” - you will need to come back to here later.

Try playing some music with your default media player - you should be able to hear it through your headphones. If you can’t, open the Windows Mixer from the loudspeaker icon in the taskbar and adjust the output levels so that you can hear the music playing. When you can hear the music playing, close the Windows Mixer and click “OK” on the “Sounds and Audio Devices Properties” window.

Are we OK so far?

Now to setup Audacity:

Open Audacity and Click “Edit menu > Preferences > Audio I/O”
Check that the Recording and Playback devices are set to your sound card.
On the “Quality” tab, set the quality for “16 bit” and a sample rate of “44100 Hz”.

Close Audacity Preferences and Import an audio file (or generate a tone from the Generate menu). When you play it, the sound should come out through your headphones - can you hear it?

Are we OK so far?

Hopefully this is all working. Now, if you connect an ordinary microphone into the microphone input socket of your computer, you should be able to record and play in Audacity. If you cannot record, then you need to select the “Mic” input for recording in the “Windows Mixer” (loudspeaker icon). Note that the Record settings in the Windows Mixer are on a different part of the Mixer to the playback controls that we saw before.

To open the Record settings on the Windows mixer:

  1. double click on the loudspeaker icon (or Right click and select "Open Volume Control)
  2. Click on “Options”
  3. Click on “Properties”
  4. Select “Recording” and click “OK”
    You should now see something like this:
    recording-control.png
    You will see here that the Microphone input is selected. I can adjust the recording level with the microphone recording level slider.

If you cannot see the microphone input, or if you are using the “Line in” and you cannot see the “Line input” control, or if you are recording from “Stereo Mix” and you cannot see the “Mix” recording control, then, in the Windows Mixer:

  1. Click on “Options”
  2. Click on “Properties”.
    All available recording inputs are shown and the inputs that are selected here will be displayed in the mixer window.

Recording from a USB input

If you want to record from a USB input. Connect the device and wait a moment for Windows to recognise and connect to the device.
By default, Windows will set any USB asudio device as the default for recording and playback.
If you want to still listen to your computer through the headphones that are connected to your sound card, you will probably need to go back to the “Audio Devices” in the “Windows Control Panel” and set the playback device to your sound card because Windows will usually switch the output to the USB device (even if the USB device is not capable of audio playback).

In Audacity, open Edit > Preferences > Auidio I/O and set the recording device to USB and the Playback device to your sound card.

6

At last! Thank you Steve.Thank you very very much.