Audacity Forum

I am a real novice at this so any replies please in 'idiot guide' format!

I want to record a guitar then I want to play the music back and then sing to the guitar track whilst recording the song.

Is this possible?

Can anyone help me with this?

Absolutely it's possible, it's what Audacity does

You're best bet is to check out the Audacity tutorial pages - http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php?title=Tutorials

I have had a look through the various tutorials but I can't actually find anywhere where it says you can play one track whilst recording another.

Please could you give me some pointers to the right place. I am sure it must be obvious but I can't see it.

Have you tried just opening your audacity project that has the guitar part, clicking the red record button, and singing into the mic? This is how I record multiple parts - by clicking the record button, it plays the existing parts and let's you record a new one.

Like LilSpider says, by default Audacity will start a new track each time you start to record. Make sure that the following option is ticked in Edit - Preferences - Audio IO - Play other tracks while recording new one.

Also, depending on your hardware setup you may need to also tick Software Playthrough, but only if you can't hear the instrument being played during recording.