Overdub recordings only record intermittently

Audacity 3 Help Forum Windows
1

I’m using Audacity 2.1.0 on Windows 8. To record, I’m using the microphone built into my laptop (a Lenovo G50).

I’m trying to record my own voice singing along to another track on Audacity (I’m practicing flow-verlapping: http://www.mimicmethod.com/blog/screw-idahosa-i-can-learn-pronunciation-and-flow-on-my-own-with-flow-verlapping). Right now I’m just trying to rap along to a 7-second slowed-down line of my target song, and I want my recording to be perfectly in sync with the song. This should be easy enough to do with Audacity’s Overdub feature. Problem is, Audacity only records bits and pieces of my voice; that is, my recording winds up as seven seconds of white noise with 3 or 4 random syllables popping up here and there. If I open a blank project and record there, it comes out fine, but for some reason I can’t seem to record while I’m playing another track. My laptop has a 1.80GHz processor with 4GB of RAM, which I’d think would be fine since I’m working with short audio clips, but maybe I’m wrong. Any ideas on what I can be doing differently?

2

You didn’t mention which headphones you’re using. They’re required when overdubbing to keep the playback volume from interfering with the recording.

You may also be running into Windows Advanced Services which is a system to help you in conferencing and communications, but can interfere with straight, uncomplicated recording.

http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/faq_recording_troubleshooting.html#enhancements

Koz

3

I’m using a pair of Sennheiser earbuds. I forget the exact model name.

But anyway, in Windows 8 I right-clicked the speaker icon and went to Playback Devices > Speakers >Properties > Enhancements and checked “Disable all sound effects.” Worked like a charm. Thank you!