Audacity Forum

I recorded a guiatr rhythem on one track. I'm trying to now record a vocal on a separate track ... but can't figure out how I can have the guitar part be heard so I know where to sing. Every time I try this I can record the vocal but I can't hear the guitar on the old track. How can I hear the old guitar track while I record my new vocal?

In Menu > Edit > Preferences > Audio I/O, check the box that says 'Play other tracks while recording new one'.

However, you may find when you play back the two tracks that they are not in time with each other. This is called latency and is caused by the fact that your computer takes a certain length of time to process your voice and create the track.

A quick fix is to add a little bit of silence at the beginning of the guitar track so that they line up.

If you don't want to do that every time, version 1.3.9 has tools to compensate for latency. This page from the manual describes how to test for latency and apply correction.
http://manual.audacityteam.org/index.ph ... tency_Test

PO'L

But let's come back to my original concern. I want to record vocals on track 2 ... but if I'm recording on track 2 and can not hear track 1 that I previously recorded ... than how am I suppose to know "when" to sing. Thanks for the tip on latency .. but I won't even get to latency if I can't figure out this first issue.

Irish wrote:In Menu > Edit > Preferences > Audio I/O, check the box that says 'Play other tracks while recording new one'.

That's how you hear track 1 while recording track 2.

As you said, the latency issue comes in after you've recorded both tracks.

PO'L