Trying to record myself with instrumental but i get delay.

[drew4565]

Trying to record myself with YouTube instrumental but i get delay after i hear the track. I've searched for answers. Something about latency but the problems is still there. Would appreciate help!

[steve]

See these tutorials for "overdub recording" in the manual: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/tu ... rdubs.html

[kozikowski]

You violated a couple of rules there. To get the original music and your voice to line up you need to adjust Audacity Latency and that works on music Audacity is playing. So if you download the music and play it in Audacity, then you can make that work pretty well.

http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/tu ... rdubs.html

There are two different latencies. Getting two tracks to line up is one, but there's another latency when you try to sing and your voice goes to your headphones (required) late. That's computer hardware delay and you're stuck with it.

Koz

[drew4565]

Yeah i have headphones, the problems use to be i couldn't hear my what i record. I think i fixed it, but when i record with the instrumental, the track is delay. I've recorded tracks before without delay, i don't know what's problem. And it's frustrating me yo.

[kozikowski]

Audacity > Edit > Preferences > Recording > [X] Overdub (but not Playthrough).

the track is delay.

So your voice and the instruments don't line up?

You just have to crank through the instructions. There's no shortcut. The two sentence version is make an overdub recording and measure the difference between the two tracks -- the delay. Then add that value to the existing delay in Audacity > Preferences > Recording > Latency > Latency Correction and try again.

One way is to create a click track for track one and for track two, clap, click your fingers, or tap a pencil in time to the clicks. Stop, and measure the difference between the two tracks -- the delay.

No, it's not easy, but there's no shortcuts.

Koz

[drew4565]

"So your voice and the instruments don't line up?"

That exactly what i'm saying. When i record and hear myself it delays so badly. Dang i'm so confused. I tried everything. I'm using my dell laptop. Will try to do it on my mom's computer it's window vista. But i have to plug the cords in the back. You know a link where i can find that, to correctly connect the plugs in the proper place together?

Thx again

[kozikowski]

When i record and hear myself it delays so badly.

That's the other delay. That's the one we can't fix. If you listen to yourself and have an echo in your headphones, that's machine delay and we can't fix that.

The overdubbing instructions have three ways to use special hardware to get around this.

http://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/pix/ ... Lenovo.jpg
http://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/pix/ ... ctions.jpg
http://www.kozco.com/tech/audacity/pix/ ... verdub.jpg

Note the headphones are never plugged into the computer.

You don't have to use the special hardware, but then you can't hear yourself laying down the new track. You have to do it blind. Most computers have this problem. Expensive sound programs have custom software that helps with this problem and digital audio workstations are designed to behave. They're not cheap, either.

This is one way to do it if your vocal feedback doesn't work right. Turn it off and use your hand.

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/pix/announcer.jpg

Koz

[drew4565]

If headphones are never plugged to computer how can i record. I need to hear the beat and record on mic. How can i fix that problem?

[drew4565]

PS. my mic doesn't have a plug where i can put my headphones. That's why i'm really confuse.

[steve]

It sounds like you don't really have the right equipment for the job. Try telling us exactly what equipment you are using (in detail - including make and model where possible) and we will be able to advise how to set up for the equipment that you have.