Audacity Forum

I'm using Audacity on a Windows XP. The only thing I don't like about it is that if I select 'software playthrough', there is an irritable delay that makes it really difficult to record music, so I've been working with the playthrough off, which is likewise difficult because I can't hear what I'm doing. I believe Mac versions have a hardware playthrough option with no delay, but that doesn't work in Windows.

Has anyone found a way to eliminate the delay in audio playthrough on a Windows? Or at least make it less noticeable? Any ideas are appreciated

It depends on your hardware.

If you are using a conventional sound card then hardware playthrough is almost certainly available on Windows XP (use the sound card mixer to enable playback of the input that you are using).
If you are using a USB microphone then hardware playback is not available because there is no hardware route between the USB microphone and the sound card that is playing back.
If you are using a USB sound card (for both recording and playback) then it depends on the drivers (if available it can be configured in the same way as for an internal sound card).
Some USB sound cards have a headphone jack on the device that allows you to hear what you are recording with no delay.

stevethefiddle wrote:It depends on your hardware.

If you are using a conventional sound card then hardware playthrough is almost certainly available on Windows XP (use the sound card mixer to enable playback of the input that you are using).
If you are using a USB microphone then hardware playback is not available because there is no hardware route between the USB microphone and the sound card that is playing back.
If you are using a USB sound card (for both recording and playback) then it depends on the drivers (if available it can be configured in the same way as for an internal sound card).
Some USB sound cards have a headphone jack on the device that allows you to hear what you are recording with no delay.

I'm just using whatever's in my computer... it's a Compaq laptop, and a fairly old one too (not the best piece of technology in the world, I'll admit

brighambartol wrote:I'm just using whatever's in my computer...

You're probably in luck then.
Look for a loudspeaker icon near to the Time/Date on your Desktop - that gives access to the sound card mixer - there's lots of "hidden" options so explore thoroughly.
If the icon is not there, you can get to the same thing through Windows Control Panel > Sounds and Audio Devices.

thanks! I was able to simply turn on the volume inder "microphone", which plays through all my input audio suitably.

I use playthrough with Audacity and ASIO4ALL, as I want to hear the guitar track as I play it (with the option of having it on its own track or premixed with the vocals). It works very well, but you need to roll your own binary to get the ASIO support.

Audacity currently works nicely with the 2.10b1 ASIO4ALL. (Well, the last CVS checkout I built did, anyway! =D)