Recording on top of a track

[valentinesgift]

I'm playing a track and recording vocals on top of it... the issue is... for some reason, no matter what I do, the track is too loud and overpowers the vocals. I tried adjusting the microphone and even speaking even more loud into the mic, that did little. I was wondering also, if Audacity adds the effect that karaoke recording does. I'd like to record and hear myself and a slight echo WHILE recording... I know how to do this after recording... thanks for any help in advance.

[steve]

Once you have recorded a track you can adjust the volume of the track with the volume slider at the left hand end of the track.

If the vocal (microphone) recording is very quiet, make sure that you have it plugged into a microphone input and not a "line" input (or use an external microphone pre-amp).

You may also need to adjust the levels in the Recording section of the Windows Mixer.

Audacity does not have "real time effects", so you can only apply echo or reverb after you have recorded.