Audacity Forum

Ok, so I currently have Audacity with windows 8,
I have purchased a new USB microphone,
When I import an instrumental to Audacity,
And try to record vocals over it, the beat starts to skip,
I find this very weird because it only skips when the mic is hooked up,
(As far as I know, all of my settings are correct)
Has anyone ever heard of this? and how can I fix the problem?

You didn't say "Windows 8 on a new, powerful computer."

Skipping and holes in the performance are generally because the computer can't keep up. If you're overdubbing, the machine has to maintain perfect, real-time playback of the original track and perfect, real-time recording of your voice. That's not easy and the process falls apart if there are any timing problems in the system.

You can get this if your virus protection is overly aggressive, if your drive is too full or fragmented, or if you're trying to do a million things on the machine in addition to overdubbing.

Did you leave Skype running in the background? Restart the machine and don't let anything else start up. See if that helps.

Koz