Stop Audacity Recording the Beat and Vocals?

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

I am having issues with basic recording but cannot find the solution to my problem anywhere.

When I record I want to be able to hear other tracks so that I keep up with the beat so I have overdub checked in my preferences but when I record it records the beat as well as my vocals. Does anyone know how to stop this?

To be clear what I want is to be able to hear other tracks while recording but for it only to record my vocals and not any of the other tracks.

I am using headphones and Windows 8 if that makes any difference.

2

Topic moved to the Windows forum.

Ensure that the recording device in the device toolbar is set to record directly from your microphone and not from “Sound Mapper” or “Stereo Mix”.
Ensure that “Transport > Software Playthrough” is OFF (not selected).

3

Ah yes that appears to have worked thank-you.

Another question if you don’t mind answering me.

I don’t have any instruments and so I like to use the online instruments in browser. In order to record those I would need to use something other than the microphone as the mic picks up the tapping on my keyboard. Would it be possible to record this, still hear the backing track and not have the backing track recording as per my first question?

4

No, because:
To record what is playing in your browser you need to record what is playing on your computer.
If you play back tracks in Audacity, they will be “playing on your computer”, and so will be (re-)recorded into the new track.
Windows does not provide audio routing between applications.

5

You can still record the instruments first, then overdub against the instruments and the backing.

For audio routing tools for Windows you can look at Virtual Audio Cable (not free) or VB-Audio Virtual Cables.


Gale