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I need some advice with Audacity software. I've only ever recorded on a TASCAM 8 track in the past.

Simply, how do you get a track already laid down to play back audibly whilst recording another track so that you can play along with previously recorded tracks?

Any advice would be gratefully received.

If you search YouTube, Dave Monk did a tutorial on Audacity a few years ago. You’ll need to search through his many postings for it!

Ian

Here it is: https://youtu.be/Oq2pSxMkq8Y

Ian

Many thanks, Ian

The most likely problem you will encounter is latency. I load a backing track into Audacity, create another track, hook up my Mustang III with the USB cable. I have the playthrough in Audacity disabled and rely on the sound from the amp to hear what I'm playing. The guitar signal gets recorded on the second track. You need to determine what the latency is for your setup, mine is 100 milliseconds, set that in the options. Audacity then shifts the guitar track to take account of the delay. Then just save as a new file and it will combine both tracks, usually with a warning it is about to do so.

What audio interface are you using?

Sorry Steve - you are speaking Chinese!

Everything goes into my laptop via a USB input from my mixing desk. Does that answer your question?

Your Mixer is the USB interface.

You should be hearing the recorded track back through your speakers assuming they are attached to the mixer or are you connected to the laptop to hear it back?

Yes. The speakers are connected up. I think I have the problem solved now. I just need to get more familiar with everything. Thanks for all the interest.

artyman wrote:The most likely problem you will encounter is latency. I load a backing track into Audacity, create another track, hook up my Mustang III with the USB cable. I have the playthrough in Audacity disabled and rely on the sound from the amp to hear what I'm playing. The guitar signal gets recorded on the second track. You need to determine what the latency is for your setup, mine is 100 milliseconds, set that in the options. Audacity then shifts the guitar track to take account of the delay. Then just save as a new file and it will combine both tracks, usually with a warning it is about to do so.

I was a bit amazed at the latency here. Up until now I have only used Audacity as a quick way of changing Tempo or Key. I run Cakewalk Sonar Pro and currently run at full latency of 9ms. So I tried recording on Audacity with Playthrough on. It's awful - and on the same machine? So Playthrough seems to be unusable. I did reduce the latency setting to 9ms - but it still seemed to take 100ms.

I can't get Audacity to show which drivers are being used - devices yes - but not the drivers. So seems you need to have direct monitoring of the input.

But it is free and if you understand the Latency all may be well. It's still useful.