Recording Multi-track Overdubs
This set of tutorials describes known, good, working methods of creating a multiple sound track overdubbing session in Audacity. That is, you record one track and then play it and add a second track against it -- drums, guitar, voice; repeat as needed. You will be able to hear a mix of your live recording and the previous tracks simultaneously in your headphones (also required).
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Overdubbing with purpose-built hardware
These tutorials explain the creation of multi-track overdubs using three different specialist hardware configurations.
- A USB microphone pre-amp with one XLR microphone input and a mini-jack headphone socket.
- A stereo, line level, USB external sound card (2-channel USB/Audio Interface).
- A USB microphone.
All three have been hands-on tested. They can be made to work on Linux®, Mac®, and Windows®.
Overdubbing using your computer's on-board sound card
You may also try overdubbing using your computer's on-board sound card. Note that standard sound cards supplied with the computer often are not very good, the main problem being that the microphone input can be noisy. You may not be able to hear yourself during the recording.
- Using your on-board sound card
This tutorial is designed to help if your equipment does not have hardware playthrough and software playthrough is not an option.
On Windows or Linux, you can try unmuting your input in the playback side of the system mixer. This will give you low latency hardware playthrough of what you are recording. Older Windows XP systems quite often have this feature.
On all operating systems, you can try in Audacity instead, but this will always mean you hear yourself late and could cause audio breakup.
- (Only gives somewhat lower latency): On Windows Vista and 7, right-click over the by the clock, choose , right-click over the input, choose then on the "Listen" tab, enable "Listen to this device".
- (Advanced) Compile Audacity with ASIO® true low latency support. Ask on the Compiling Audacity board of the Forum if you need help.
Further Help
If, no matter what you do, the show sounds terrible or doesn't work at all, drop in to the Forum where we can try to help you further. Registration is required to post and you may need to wait before your posting appears.
At minimum, you will need to tell us: exactly which version of Audacity you are using (that means the full three-part number, for example 2.0.0), what kind of computer you have and which operating system it uses. Don't head straight to the details of the problem without telling us what you're producing and why. Be prepared to tell us how the straight recording session went - the one you did before you tried overdubbing.
may give us useful diagnostic information, but if you post it, please post it between [code] [/code] tags.
