Software playthrough

[manguiko]

I saw this in another message:
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"Edit > Preferences > Audio I/O"
Switch off "software playthrough"
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What does this actually do?''

Thanks!

[waxcylinder]

Software Playthrough (when checked on) enables the Audacity software to play the new track while you are recording it - i.e. it sends the audio signal to whatever soundcard device you have currently designated as the audio aoutput device.

You will need to uncheck it if you are recording streaming audio with "stereo mix" "What-u-hear" or whatever - otherwise you will likely get feedback.

WC

[steve]

As WC said. Also, most sound cards on Windows machines can play back audio while you are recording, all in hardware. This is very much faster than software playthrough and works well.
When using software playthrough, the sound that is being recorded is sent back to the playback device by the software, and due to various technical reasons such as audio buffering, this takes a noticeable amount of time and can cause unwanted echo type effects.

A situation when you may want to use software playthrough is if you are recording something from a USB audio device such as a turntable, and you want to hear what is being recorded through your computers sound system. Because the USB recording device and the computers sound card are physically indipendent, there is no direct hardware link between them. In this case, software playthough can be used to send the sound that is being recorded through to your computer sound card. Also in this situation, the fact that you may have a half second delay before playback is not too important.

[manguiko]

Thanks for the great explanations, fellows!

Very useful to know these things.