Pulling audio from previous tracks to new track

[Joey Chickenskin]

I hope this hasn't been asked elsewhere, I can't find it if it has.

Quite often when I record in audacity, the first track is fine however when I go to record a second track the new track seems to pull audio from the first track as well as from the new thing that I play making a horribly loud recording of both. This isn't bleed through from say not using headphones to monitor.

I have looped a drum loop as the first trach and when I play a guitar piece over the top through a Pod which is fed directly into my computer's mic port, the audio is still being pulled through from the drum track.

The infuriating thing is that by tinkering I can sometimes stop this from happening but I can never identify which part of the set-up is remedying it.

Is this a rookie error?

Thanks

[steve]

It's not Audacity causing the problem, but the Windows sound system.
Your Windows sound system is recording everything that is being sent to the speakers ("Stereo Mix", sometimes called "Mix" or "What U Hear") instead of just the mic input.

You need to find the speaker icon in the Sys tray (near the clock) and open the Mixer or control panel for your sound card and select the appropriate input for recording.

Note that a mic input is far from ideal as they are usually very low quality and thousands of times too sensitive for the output from a Pod. You should be using the "Line input". If you are on a laptop, you probably don't have a "Line input", so you will either need to be very careful with your levels, or get an external audio device.