Delay in recording

[syntext]

Total audacity novice, have only used it for copying from vinyl to cd.

I'm now trying to record music tracks using mic. and guitar pickup for individual tracks.

I've enabled play other tracks while recording and Software playthrough in properties.

I'm getting a delay between inputting a signal via mic. or pickup and it registering visually in audacity and hearing it on headphones (or speaker). Not so much of a problem laying down the first track but impossible to synchronize subsequent tracks since the output to audio monitor is immediate but there is a delay between the generation of a new sound and it being heard on the monitor when mixing.

[steve]

Software playthrough always introduces a delay - disable it.
You need to figure out a way to monitor through hardware, not software. How to do this depends on your hardware - most soundcards allow you to set it up in their mixer application (or the Microsoft Windows Mixer).