Spider V 120 and Connection to record in Audacity 2.3.3

Hi all,
Glad to be here. First things first I am a 63 year old newbie to all of this and I need some help. I was wondering if Y’all could help me with a problem I am having. I am trying to insert a backing track to play lead guitar to, which is NO problem! BUT I have a Spider V 120 amp and it is connected to my windows 10 latest update computer I7, 3.3, 16GB RAM. How do I make Audacity see my Guitar so I can record? Please help, I have been trying Cubase but it is a PITA to work with! Any help will be much appreciated, Thank Y’all…Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

You don’t say how the amp is connected to the computer.
One way is line-out from the amp to line-in, (not “mic”), on the computer.
(If the computer does not have a line-in socket there are $25 gadgets to effectively convert a USB socket into one).

Another way is to use a microphone to record the output from the amp,
but unlike line-in, that can record unwanted noises like road-traffic, dogs barking, etc.

Once you’ve got the computer to record the guitar, there is an adjustment you must make
to ensure the backing-track & your performance are in-sync when you playback in Audacity,
see … https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/latency_test.html

Hi Trebor,
I noticed I didn’t say how the spider V was connected (oops). The Spider V is connected to my computer by USB at the back of the amp, directly to USB 3 on my motherboard and I am using an onboard sound card, not a dedicated one. Audacity sees my spider amp but, I need to know how to set up the rest of audacity. Thank you for your quick reply Trebor :smiley:

Audacity sees my spider amp

And did you click Record to make sure it’s configured to make a simple-regular recording? (That should work easily as long as Window and Audacity “see” the USB device.)

Try starting with: [u]Tutorial - Recording Multi-track Overdubs[/u].

To play along with a backing track it’s the same set-up as for karaoke … https://youtu.be/1b-39uw0D1s?t=57

NB: Standard Audacity does not communicate with ASIO audio drivers :cry:

https ://manual.audacityteam.org/man/asio_audio_interface.html#Audacity_and_ASIO

Thank you Trebor and DVDDoug,
I have found my problem, it was in Windows and managing my sound devices. I am now able to lay down backing tracks and then add lead as required. Thanks again for the help and you guys helped a lot with other questions I had with some of the links Y’all provided. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!