second track lags

[suttlemyre]

Hate to keep bothering you. windows 7,beta,direct external good mike,recording guitar and vocals. Have enabled playback and record. when i play with the first track and try to add the second track there are timing issues, and i know it isnt me. Whats going on? this is a new program for me. thanks james

[Gale Andrews]

Hate to keep bothering you. windows 7,beta,direct external good mike,recording guitar and vocals. Have enabled playback and record. when i play with the first track and try to add the second track there are timing issues, and i know it isnt me. Whats going on? this is a new program for me. thanks james

If you mean that the second track is laid down after the beat of the first track, it is expected. A domestic computer cannot write the new track at the same instant as it plays the existing track.

Please look at Why isn’t my new track in sync with the previous ones? and the other Frequently Asked Questions on that page.


Gale

[suttlemyre]

Gale please help, where do i find time shift. to increase the speed of the second or added tracks?

[suttlemyre]

Gale, i have windows 7 home premium, i have set up pref. with audacity, still lagging second track, what am i doing wrong

[billw58]

Did you read the link Gale posted in his first reply?

Have a look at this page as well: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Latency_Test

The Time shift tool is described here: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Tools_Toolbar
and here: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Auda ... _and_Clips

The Time shift tool does not change the speed of the track, it is used to move the track left or right (in this case to compensate for the recording latency).

-- Bill

[Gale Andrews]

where do i ... increase the speed of the second or added tracks? i have windows 7 home premium, i have set up pref. with audacity, still lagging second track

If you have measured the Latency and set the correction value in Preferences, as described in Latency Test, you should not have a problem unless the second track is recording slower than the first track is playing. Is that the problem? Time Shift Tool cannot fix that.

To correct that problem you need to make sure you are using the same sound device for both recording and playback (for example the built in sound device the computer came with).

Then make sure you have identical sample rates in the Audacity tracks, the Audacity project rate bottom left of the screen, and in all the places that sample rates for the sound device can be set. For more details please read http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Troub ... ings#drift and ask again if you are still having problems. Of the solutions mentioned there, the best is often to choose 44100 Hz or 48000 Hz as the Audacity track and project rate, set the "Host" in Devices Preferences to "Windows Direct Sound", then check both "Exclusive Mode" boxes in "Sound" in the Windows Control Panel.

As also described in that "Drift" section, sometimes bad sound device drivers are the problem. In that case you will need to update to the latest drivers from the sound device or motherboard manufacturer.

To fix the speed of the second track you have now, you can apply a small positive change in Effect > Change Speed. If you don't get the value right, Edit > Undo each attempt and try a new value rather than making speed changes on top of speed changes.



Gale