Verbal Protocol Analysis - Recording/Pausing Multiple Audios

[mds77]

Hi all,

I recognize that most of the posts on these forums are related to music; however, as background, my use of audacity is research based. In general, my goal is to have an individual listen to an audio file, while simultaneously discussing what he/she thinks about it (you could think of it as someone listening to a song and talking about what parts they like and why). I figured out how to do this, such that Audacity will play the audio file and simultaneously record a new file. Additionally, this new file is recorded on a separate track and can be listened to by itself. Here is where the issue/problem comes into play...

I want to allow the listener to have the ability to pause the audio file (i.e. song), but not pause the new recording. I want the listener to be able to pause the file/song and elaborate on what they like about that part. Then when they are done they can start the audio file back up and continue to discuss latter parts of the file/song. This would result in the new recording (i.e. the discussion) being (let's say) 10 minutes, while the file/song they were listening to was only 5 or so minutes, because they paused it, but didn't pause the recorded discussion. Audacity allows you to pause the audio file, but also pauses the recording too. Any thoughts? I'm new to this forum section so I apologize if I posted in the wrong area or attacked this issue in an inappropriate manner. I appreciate any input, including "that's not possible" or suggestions of other (hopefully free) software that can do this.

[steve]

I want to allow the listener to have the ability to pause the audio file (i.e. song), but not pause the new recording.

Sounds like a CD player will solve your problem.
Put the audio that you want them to listen to on a CD. Get yourself a (portable) CD player. Record with Audacity.

[mds77]

I was hoping that it could all be done on one device. Additionally, I was hoping that a marker could denote when in the audio file it was paused.

[steve]

You 'may' be able to run a separate media player, though the more that is running on the computer the greater the risk of stuttering or other problems in the recording. (Foobar2000 is quite light on resources). Give it a try and see how it goes.
You can add a marker in Audacity while recording by pressing Ctrl+M (press "Enter" to close the label text)