Audacity Forum

i love audacity and i want to stick with it. That being said i am having a problem that is driving me crazy, I am trying to use audacity to record some karaoke songs.. ie me with the backing track. And i've figured out how to have audacity play the tune while i record. The problem is no matter what song it is.. nor what recorder i have tried to use Audacity several times and Microsing.. when i play the song back to listen, my track is offset somehow. When i record i know i have perfect timing (please assume here, i don't want to argue about whether i can sing or not), but when i play it back and i'm listening for the start, my voice does not come in at the time i just recorded.. its like miliseconds off. I have figured out how to move the track with the mouse.. but its such a small move i can't match it up properly. can someone help please. It does not matter the song or the player, the result is exactly the same every time miliseconds off

That's the latency of your computer. It's what makes computer sound so darn much fun. Every time the computer has to stop and think about the sound services, the sound gets late. You are listening to yourself one computer late compared to the music.

You can fix that with the Time Shift or the Alignment tools on your existing show, or you can graduate to Audacity 1.3 which I believe has tools to tune out the latency during recording.

Koz

i can't seem to find the words "time shift" anywhere .. but i did try the "align tracks together" but it didn't align anything it was the same after i clicked the button.. and .. (which is probably because i'm new) i tried to align tracks with cursor.. but its such a precise spot i need to align the lyrics to that the only way i can find the spot is by playing the top track and pressing pause.. but when i press pause i can't mark a section.. i have to unpause it.. and when its unpaused i don't know where it is... its like a cruel joke of a vicious circle

Upgrade to Audacity 1.3.7
Go to "Edit menu > Preferences > Audio I/O"
Look for the box marked "Latency Correction"
If the second track is playing too early, increase the (negative) number in the latency correction box.
If the second track is playing too late, reduce the negative number.

A setting of -150 will automatically move the new recorded track 150 milliseconds to the left as soon as recording is stopped.
A setting of -80 will automatically move the track by 80 milliseconds to the left.

Moving the new recorded track a bit to the left is required to compensate for the time delay (latency) caused by the sound working its way through your computer to the hard disk.

A good way to set this up is to make a "Click Track" (Generate menu), then play that track back and record it onto a second track. By zooming in on a click you will be able to see how far off the recorded track is from the original.