I am using Audacity 2.1.0 with Win 7-64 bit desktop computer with a logitec dynamic mic plugged into the sound card for a C-media PCI audio device.
I have been using Audacity for five years in prior PC’s to record Karoke output, both directly from mp3/cdg files played through a VLC player as well as from youtube karaoke. Either way has always worked flawlessly. Recently a got a new Desktop with win 7 Premium 64 bit and downloaded Audacity 2.1.0 loaded on my primary drive. When I play either the file or the Youtube version of a Karaoke, usually, but not always, when I first open the audacity program, everything is fine and the quality is excellent both from files or youtube. But after removing the first song and adding another, sometimes it is clear, but most of the time I now get static mixed in with the music side of the recording on Audacity replay. Makes no difference if music is coming from the file or Youtube. The mic side seems to be always clear when I test it independently multiple times. The Audacity settings I am using are MME, Stereo Mix, Stereo Record and Speakers.
One other point but not as important. I believe I used the same Audacity setting on prior computers, but in past versions when recording, the both the music and mic sound was coming through the speakers. Now only the music comes through in real time.
Any ideas to fix, primarily the first problem, would be appreciated. I have checked all the forum comments but using static as a keyword, did not see this problem addressed.
If you have the song as a file, import it into Audacity, ensure Transport > Overdub is ticked (has a checkmark) then change the Audacity recording device to the mic. Turn Transport > Software Playthrough off. Wear headphones.
You can do that even if the song you want is a YouTube video. Download the video (use your favourite search engine to find out how) then install FFmpeg: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/faq_installation_and_plug_ins.html#ffdown. Having installed FFmpeg you can drag the video into Audacity and it will extract the audio to a new track.
No, the only playthrough Audacity does is software playthrough which has latency. You may have had hardware playthrough of the mic on other computers (no latency, you unmute the mic in the Playback side of the Windows sound control panels).
But it’s the wrong approach. Import the file then overdub it, recording with the mic. That way you get the song on one track and your voice on another. Cough by mistake, and you can delete the cough without deleting that part of the song.
Gale- Really do appreciate the response, but aside from the fact downloading each file is very time consuming as compared to the legacy way I have been using Audacity which has allowed a simple playing of the file or youtube video and singing along with it and then have a temporary version to either save or delete, other problems as I describe below come into play.
Some background. I have some 5000 Karaoke songs on my hard rive. Each song requires two matching files, the mp3 and the CDG which provides the “synced” video with lyrics to the music. Historically, all I have had to do is open the “matched” mp3 file and VLC would open a video screen which played both the music and the lyrics. Audacity would be open on half my monitor, and once the VLC screen opens, I would just click record on Audacity, and combined music with singing would record. If I didn’t like the output, or the song, I would just close the tracks and start over if I didn’t want to save it and either redo it or move on to another song. Or I would just export the audacity file as an mp3 and save it. So am am really just talking about two clicks and a few seconds the way things were. Quick, easy and with great quality. (However, even in the past, after a maybe a dozen or two songs, the quality of the playback would start to degrade to some static requiring me to close and reopen audacity).
Using your recommendation of loading the mp3 file in audacity and then dubbing in the singing certainly gives a clear rendition of the music and voice, but aside from the time consumption of adding the additional steps, it does not allow for the CDG file with the lyrics video to play. I envision a similar problem with Youtube. Getting the musics alone is easy, but without the video lyrics, it really no longer is Karaoke.
I really have enjoyed the ease of using Audacity for Karaoke, particularly having learned the features over the years, to have to move to another software would be very disappointing. Hopefully you, or anyone else, will have some other usable solutions I can try to go back to the historical way I have used the various programs and files together.
I explained the “best” way" to do it which (you agree) would avoid the quality and latency problems you have now and have always had to some degree.
If you have the MP3 you could import that into Audacity and read the lyrics from a text file instead. Or perhaps you could play the MP3 + CDG in VLC with the sound muted while overdubbing against the MP3 playing in Audacity. The delay between you pressing Play in VLC and Record in Audacity may be no worse than the delay while you wait for the mic to be fed to the speakers.
From your description, the effort of playing the MP3 + CDG in VLC, while simultaneously sending the mic through the speakers and simultaneously recording is too much for your computer and you are picking up noise from the electronics. You would probably have the same issue with any recording application. Does the problem occur if you quit and restart Audacity after each song or quit and restart VLC after each song? How much memory does your computer have?
How exactly are you making the mic play through the speakers? Are you using “Listen to this device” or have you added some software like Virtual Audio Cable to do this? If you can unmute the mic in the playback side of Windows Sound that would be hardware playthrough - it would not have latency and would not add CPU load to the computer. I suggest you investigate that, but most entry level computers these days cannot do it.