Audacity Forum

Hi, I'm sorry to bother you with my question, I've tried to find an answer online, but couldn't.
My problem is :
I record like 2 tracks (eg music and vocal 1) and everything works fine. The quality is OK. Then, I'm trying to
record a new vocal and this happens:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHl9wxTt5cE

EVERY TIME.

First and probably best guess is your computer can't keep up. Audio (and video) production requires that the computer be able to play and record in real time -- sometimes at the same time. This is very unlike recalculation of an Excel spreadsheet or producing a Photoshop Gaussian Blur. In those cases, the computer just takes as much time as it needs and you go drink coffee.

Not so audio processing. The next musical note is going to come down the line and needs to be dealt with right now, or there will be holes in the performance -- like you have.

Anything that slows the computer down counts. When was the last time you defragmented your internal hard drive? Audacity (and most production software) will not run into a fragmented drive. Are you filling up your drive? Can't do that, either.

Defrag
-- Right Click Start > Explore > Right Click Local Drive C: > Properties (Used, Remaining)
-- Tools > Error Checking & Defragmentation

USB External drives need not apply. Unless you're using FireWire, external drives don't go fast enough for production.

Again guessing, you can't use a light-weight notebook computer for this type of work. It simply isn't going fast enough to keep up.

Koz

The problem is often referred to as "Skipping" and is most common with USB sound cards/microphones.
See here: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Manag ... nd_Drivers