Audacity Forum

I enabled the feature that allows you to hear as your track as you record. (I am recording live guitar) But there is a delay in the output of the track, it is not in realtime. Essentially, it is playing slower than I am actually playing, which makes it very difficult for playing what I am trying to record. Is there a way to set this up to play in realtime, so I hear exactly what I am playing as I play it? I need to hear exactly waht I am playing as I do it. Thanks for any help.

What you are experiencing is latency, which is a delay caused by the time it takes for the playback to make its way through the audio hardware. It can vary from device to device and is such a common issue that music manufacturers make a virtue of the low or zero latency for their products. Version 1.3.x of Audacity has a feature where you can compensate for latency (although I've never used it), but this isn't available in 1.2.x. If the latency can't be compensated for in this manner, then the only other route is to upgrade your audio hardware.

If you select "software playthrough" then you will get a LOT of latency. Most hardware is able to playback using hardware and does not require software playthrough.

Go to "Edit > Preferences > Audio I/O" and make sure that "Play other tracks while recording new one" is selected, but "software playthrough" is not selected.