voice recording over mp3

[LMPeach01]

I have imported an MP3 file into Audacity (plays fine - no problems), but when I try to record my voice over it, the sound becomes all distorted about 20s in. I have tried everything I know to do (including updating my sound card driver), but to no avail. Am I doing something wrong? As far as I know, I have all the settings correct. Please help!

[steve]

Check in the Windows Mixer and tell us which recording inputs are enabled.

[LMPeach01]

i have tried it with both "microphone" (which produces the distortion) and "line in" (which records nothing.

[steve]

Time to give the ol' crystal ball a quick pollish...
You are recording onto a laptop computer that has an on-board sound card... possibly a RealTek HD, possibly another brand.
There is a loudspeaker icon, possibly brown, near to the system clock that opens the sound card control panel.
Hidden in there are settings for "Noise Reduction", Echo Cancellation", "Automatic Gain (AGC)" or something along those lines - switch off ALL effects.

Search the sound-card settings thoroughly - it is common for some settings to be very effectively hidden.

[kozikowski]

We might be gazing intently in the wrong place. What happens if you start Audacity cold and record your voice on a fresh timeline with no other audio?

<<<I have imported an MP3>>>

That's a bell ringer right there. Unless you have Windows File Extensions enabled which most people don't, you're taking it on blind faith that it's a real MP3 file. If it's not, you're trying to mix sound with a damaged or unrecognized sound clip.

Koz

[LMPeach01]

OK, I've gone searching for these "hidden" settings (i.e. clicked and explored every possible icon/tab available, but i've found nothing related to echo cancellation or noise reduction, etc.

to answer the other question, i guess maybe i am just assuming it's an mp3 since i used "import an mp3 audio file" to get it into audacity, but my voice records fine when NOT over the track on a clean audacity file. so if this is the problem, is there any way around it to get my voice to record over an imported audio file without all the sound distortion and noise????

[steve]

but my voice records fine when NOT over the track on a clean audacity file.

That makes a big difference to the scenario (puts crystal ball away - right answer, wrong Audacity user ).

If you mute the mp3 track, does the voice then sound OK?
Be generous with your typing. Too much information is better than not enough.

[LMPeach01]

muting the mp3 (or what i think is an mp3) track and then recording my voice yields the same noise and distortion....

[steve]

Let's try and eliminate some of the possibilities. First, try updating Audacity to he 1.3.7 version (the old 1.2.6 version is almost obsolete now).

[LMPeach01]

ok, i've updated. i still have the same general problem, what else can i do?