What I have…
Audacity 2.0.5
Mackie 16 channel mixer
Audio-Technica ATR2USB 3.5mm to USB adapter
HP Pavillion laptop with Windows 8.1
What I’m currently doing…
Simply starting Audacity, selecting a karaoke track from YouTube, selecting record.
The music and mic are mixed at the Mackie and both are being recorded using the laptop as the recorder and PA amp and speakers are used as full mix monitors.
What I am trying to do…
Record the vocals separate from the music track so I can edit, adjust, modify, the vocal track and leave the music untouched. I am hoping to harmonize with myself by adding a second and possibly third vocal track as well.
The problem…
I have NO IDEA what the heck I am doing !!! I have watched the youtube videos for audacity and I have read the posts about what to do and I’m freakin’ LOST.
Someone help me and please teach me like I’m 5 years old. 
I’m not even sure I posted this in the right place.
I have NO IDEA what the heck I am doing !!!
I can’t think of a good stupid joke here, so just don’t worry about it.
I have the 10,000 foot (3000M) overview of what you want. Did you already have a lot of this stuff from your band and you thought to use it all between gigs? Good idea. It will drive you crazy for a while, but it should be entertaining when you get it to work.
I can shoot down two ideas right away. It’s almost a certainty you have the wrong analog/digital converter. Your converter is expecting you to plug a computer microphone into the pink connector. The connection is mono and supplies battery to the microphone. It’s not the stereo connection from your mixer you thought it was. I use the Behringer UCA-202, I have two, and I like them very much. I certified them for Perfect Overdubbing when I wrote the original overdubbing tutorial.
That’s my mixer on the right there.
The other problem is using the powerful music system for live mixing. Probably not. If you use a microphone anywhere in the system, you have to listen to your live mix with headphones (note the earbuds in the pix. I know nobody would mix on earbuds, but that’s where you plug in the headphones.). If you try to live mix with a microphone and speakers, you will get the old tracks and the rhythm bed mixed into your new live tracks.
Live voices need the headphones, no question. Most of the time drums, too.
I’m not even sure I posted this in the right place.
Since you have Win8, this is a safe choice.
There is a formal overdubbing tutorial.
http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/tutorial_recording_multi_track_overdubs.html
The one sticky problem everybody runs into is listening to themselves in real time. It’s a super good chance you can’t listen to the computer when you overdub. “How come I hear my voice coming back with an echo?”
That’s what plugging your headphones into the UCA202 solves. It’s also a tiny mixer and solves the delay and echo problems.
Koz
The UCA202 is not the only way to solve this, but you are so far along with existing equipment, I think that’s the cheapest solution that will work. You can buy stereo sound mixers that will do this and there are other analog/digital converters which will work.
There’s even at least one digital microphone that will do this.
Koz
Ok, I just purchased the UCA-202. I’ll give it a shot. I may be back for more info. Thanks for the reply.
Yes, you pretty much nailed it. I’m actually between bands and wanting to stay sharp and also create some samples that I can email or post so I can kind of “pre-audition” without wasting anyone’s time.
I may be back for more info.
Any time.
That tutorial does a pretty good job of stepping you through the process. One of the steps is to make a simple, uncomplicated, non-overdubbed recording. Like, set up, press record and sing three notes. Done. If there’s anything at all wrong with that simple recording, you’re doomed.
There’s a very high likelihood that a simple recording would have failed with your current equipment.
The rest of the overdubbing process is built on the assumption that you can do a straight recording. There is another poster who never got that step to work and we’re going round and round to figure out what happened.
Koz
Audacity has a very good on-line instruction manual.
http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/
Note under tutorials, it has “Your First Recording.”
Koz
Perhaps the tutorials are clear for those that have a some prior understanding, but not so clear to me. I don’t know what my version of Windows does or does not allow to be done. I don’t know what sound card or hardware is in my laptop. I mean, heck, I thought the Audio Technica thing would work because it was on a youtube video. 
I don’t know what “The mix is half-and-half and you can’t change it, so it may take some experimenting to get the headphone mix just right as you perform” really means I suppose until I start using it. It seems contradictory the mix is 50/50 and can’t be changed, but experimenting will help get the mix right. Is it adjustable or not adjustable? I imagine it would be like me explaining something I know to someone that does not. I would see it clearly, they may not. I am not criticizing. It is my inability to “get it” and probably not that the instructions are bad. I greatly appreciate the help so far and when the UCA202 gets here, I’ll see how it goes. 
Is it adjustable or not adjustable?
The UCA202 mixes your live voice with whatever is playing on Audacity to make the headphone signal. That’s what the little Monitor switch does. The UCA202 has no knobs to adjust except the headphone volume. However, you can adjust the individual track playback in Audacity and control the live mix that way.
Remembering that when the grownups do this, they send a rough-cut mix to everybody’s headphones so the artists can get an idea of the song and their place in it. Nobody considers that the final mix. You won’t see a final until weeks of sweetening, filtering, effects and track management created in a quiet room with powerful coffee.
Yes, there are totally devices which do have the ability to live change the headphone balance. That digital microphone can do that. But they’re all much more money, and only slightly more convenient.
Koz
Grownups?
At 52 I am pretty sure I qualify.
Thanks for the help and the explanations.
Metaphorical grownup.
What was that New Yorker cartoon? On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.
Koz
The 202 is on it’s way. Should have it tomorrow. If am understanding correctly, I will be playing the music and recording at the same time. Is that correct? The laptop will be able to perform both functions?
I assume the headphone jack from the laptop will go to the mixer, then mix with the vocals and exit through the “202” back into the laptop to create the vocal recording separate from the original music recording.
Check my logic here.
- Create Audacity file from source (laptop playing a CD or a youtube file)
- connect the headphone jack to the mixer input channel(s)
- Connect the microphone to another mixer input channel
- Connect the 202 to the mixer’s tape output.
- Connect the USB of the 202 to the laptop
- Connect earbuds to 202
- With the existing music file displayed, hit record and sing along with the Audacity music file. I should be hearing both through the earbuds.
Is this correct? 
Ummmm. No.
The playback has to be already in Audacity. The UCA202 handles everything. No audio cables except the mixer to the UCA202. This is the whole setup.
You can’t use wild playback like from YouTube or a Music CD. What you can do is capture the work as an audio file and then load it into Audacity. Audacity has to play the old work and record the new work in order to get the delays, coordination and latencies right. Also remember, on most computers, you can’t play two separate things at once.
So you import or perform the guide or rhythm track on Audacity Track 1. Let’s say you’re going to perform drums. The first one is a straight recording. You can also use Generate > Click Track and play the whole song and all the overdubs to that.
Play the drum track in Overdubbing mode to the UCA202 where you listen to it. Audacity is also recording the guitar from the UCA202 onto Audacity Track 2. This is valid because you only have one playback and one record. Since you’re on headphones, the two tracks never meet. Play the drums and guitar into your headphones while you sing into track 3.
Play back 1, 2, and 3, while you perform and record keyboard.
You can use the MUTE and SOLO button to the left of each track to control what plays into your headphones. Do you want always to use the drum guide track by itself for all the instruments and not hear any of them until the final. OK. MUTE all the instruments you don’t want. Or SOLO the drum track and leave the others alone.
You are following along with the tutorial, right? You’ll need that to set the initial Recording Latency, or the track delays will drive you crazy.
The laptop will be able to perform both functions?
Maybe not if you have a wimpy, Piggly Wiggly computer, no. The computer has to have enough horsepower to run two sound channels at once and enough hard drive space to save it all. Sound (and video) aren’t like sending email. The computer has to be fast enough to handle everything in real time.
Koz
Please re-read my step one.
Second, How do I hear the music from the Audacity file when the only connection is the mixer input? Unless you are answering my question about the USB passing a signal in bot directions. Is that the case?
If the USB is both feeding a signal to Audacity to record and also supplying music to the 202 via the same USB connection, then it makes sense.
Yes, I once again went through the tutorial, but I still don’t seem to have the setup that is illustrated.
I think at this point I am going to scrap the whole idea. I know what I am trying to do and it is just not going to happen with what I have.
All the latency correction and stuff is just going to result in a huge mess.
I appreciate the attempt to help. I Need to get some more sophisticated equipment to do what I am trying to do.
I simply want to hear (in real time) and sing along (while monitoring in real time) while recording and have the ability to listen to the combined tracks when I am done. From there, I want to repeat the process adding backing vocals.
I am sure there is a way to accomplish this. I had a friend record our band doing this very thing and I don’t recall it being very complex.
I simply want to hear (in real time) and sing along (while monitoring in real time) while recording and have the ability to listen to the combined tracks when I am done. From there, I want to repeat the process adding backing vocals.
Yes. That’s totally what the overdubbing process does.
The tutorial has the bicycle problem. Ever hear of the joke of the four book set “How to Ride a Bicycle?” Go ahead. Describe to somebody over the phone how to ride a bicycle when they’ve never seen one.
The tutorial tries to cover all the different configurations on three different operating systems. And it’s not a simple system.
I had a friend record our band doing this very thing and I don’t recall it being very complex.
Doesn’t surprise me. If they had a much higher end sound program, they would have had special software that automatically took care of echoes, latencies and clip management. Audacity can’t do that because of licensing fees.
I Need to get some more sophisticated equipment to do what I am trying to do.
Software. The extra ASIO software package forces your existing computer to manage latency and echoes instead of using the UCA202.
All the latency correction and stuff is just going to result in a huge mess.
Just two. Recording latency is where you put the headphones against the microphone and adjust out the timing errors. Machine latency doesn’t exist because you’re using the UCA202.
I can certainly make the Audacity system look like a simple walk in the park because I’ve done it before. You just walked into the main problem with troubleshooting from nine time zones away.
Up to you. Almost without question you have enough stuff now to make this work. Yes, the USB connection can speak both directions at once.
If you want to work on this, let us know.
Koz
Sorry. My fault. I didn’t step through your whole itemized list. I will do so. I had to be on opposite sides of the city today and in LA, that means pack a lunch. And Dinner. The up side is they don’t require a passport any more.
Koz
The only reason there are Apple Earbuds in those pictures is they’re pretty, small and I had them. They suck for mixing. You should certainly be using much higher quality headphones. But they do work. I did the overdubbing evaluations on those things. You’ll do final mixing on large speakers.
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Create Audacity file from source (laptop playing a CD or a youtube file)
Yes. It can come from anywhere, but Audacity has to play it into the mix.
-
connect the headphone jack to the mixer input channel(s)
Nope. The connections should look exactly like the simple setup in that picture. No extra wires.
-
Connect the microphone to another mixer input channel
It can go to any working mixer channel. They’re all open.
-
Connect the 202 to the mixer’s tape output.
-
Connect the USB of the 202 to the laptop
-
Connect earbuds to 202
6a. Start or restart Audacity. Audacity checks for new devices when it starts. Set Audacity’s Recording Device and Playback Device for the UCA202 in the device tool bar. It’s a little magic here because it doesn’t say Behringer. It says USB Audio CODEC (or it did when I bought mine).
http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/device_toolbar.html
6b. Push the tiny Monitor switch on the UCA202 to ON. You have the USB green light, right?
6c. Configure Audacity: Audacity > Edit > Preferences > [X] Overdub… and nothing else on that page.
- With the existing music file displayed, hit record and sing along with the Audacity music file. I should be hearing both through the earbuds.
Yup. Your voice should sound perfect with no echo.
When you play back the composite, chances are terrific that the two tracks will be off beat with each other. That’s the Recording Latency adjustment. You can adjust that latency to zero so that each new instrument or voice lays down on beat.
You can do this with a drum track, but it’s so much easier with the Audacity built-in click track maker. Generate > Click Track. It will be almost impossible with any other instrument. This is where you start an overdub and hold the earbuds up to the microphone.
Stop the recording and measure the difference between the two blue waves.
Add that measurement to the latency value already there (write down the old number). Audacity > Edit > Preferences > Recording > Latency Correction [xxx].
Delete the old overdub track and make a new one. Inspect those blue waves.
No, I don’t expect it to come out perfect, either, but if it comes out a zillion miles off, you probably went the wrong way when you did the latency arithmetic, subtract instead of add, or something.
Where did you get stuck if you did?
Koz
If the Recording Latency is just a little off, measure the new difference and correct the Latency value again.
Koz
Thanks a million times for the further assistance. I really want this to work. I’ll be working on it this Sunday. That’s the earliest I can get to it now.
Thanks again.
Question; Assuming NO hardware changes, will the calculated latency be a constant or will it need to be constantly set for each track or recording file?
