Audacity Forum

Hi there im having sound trouble when recording instruments on audactiy and was hoping someone can help me.
I use audacity to record a full band (1 guitar, 1 bass, 1 drum, 1 keyboard).
Anything recorded on the 1st track is always fine, however when i attempt to record on the other tracks after about 5secs i get a fuzzy, heavily distorted sound.
I've had trouble both when recording through a mic (with keyboard) and when directly plugging in my guitar to the line in of the computer (via a guitar lead with an adaptor). I've got around the trouble by recording guitar parts on multiple tracks for a short period of time (about 5secs) and then joining it all together but this is quite tedious. Any ideas what it could be?
Also when i have recorded two instruments on two tracks it seems that the second track is slower and ends up going out of time so i always have to shift the whole track up a sec or so to get them back in time. Again any help?

Thanks

In Windows Mixer, make sure that you have the actual input that you are using selected as the recording source. For example, if you have a guitar plugged into the "Line in" jack socket of your sound card, then "Line" must be selected as the recording source in the Windows Mixer (not "Stereo Mix" or "What You Hear").

I've just done all that on the mixer and its still happening, nothing has changed
Any other ideas why this may be happening?
Also, how can i sort out the out of sync tracks? (i play in time with a drum beat but when i go to listen to the guitar part its out of time and slower)

thanks for your help

Check in "Edit->Preferences->Audio I/O" and make sure that "Software Playthrough" is not selected.

If that doesn't fix it, then you will have to give more details about exactly how you have things set up (what you are recording from, where it is plugged in, what your Windows mixer settings are(playback and record), what the Audio I/O settings are, and so on)

linebacker wrote:Also, how can i sort out the out of sync tracks? (i play in time with a drum beat but when i go to listen to the guitar part its out of time and slower)

There's two things here -

One is a thing called "latency" and is caused by the time taken for your computer to grab the input signal and record it. Audacity 1.2 will attempt to correct latency, but it is not very accurate and you may need to use the "Time Shift" tool to drag the tracks into the right place (easier to do if you zoom in tight on a rhythmic part). Audacity 1.3.4 allows you to set up latency correction manually and this is much more accurate. There is a post here that shows how to do it: http://audacityteam.org/forum/viewtopic ... 5535#p5535

The other possibility is just the fact that it is very difficult to play in time with a fixed beat without any visual clues from other musicians. As a musician myself I have spent much time practicing to click tracks, and sometimes I could swear that the click is speeding up or slowing down, even though I know that it isn't.

I've checked the settings and software playthrough has been off.
My set up involves:
guiar-plugged into soundcard socket labeled with a mic- connected via a guitar lead with an adaptor on the end.
Other setup:
Amp connected via line out straight to the laptop through a lead and adaptor. Guitar played through the amp.
If this is still unclear please let me know and i'll try to help.

I will also check out the stuff you have recommended regarding the out of time tracks, thanks for that.