Multi-track recording with Audacity

Multi-track recording with Audacity

The term "Sound on Sound" dates back to the multi-track reel to reel audio recorders of the late 1960s, pioneered by the Beatles and others. The ability to record a new track while listening to others (in sync) is critical for making music. My ancient Teac 3340S reel to reel recorder calls this ability "SimulSync". There is a switch on the deck for playing back previously recorded channels via the recording tape head. There is a short time delay between the signals on the record and playback heads due to the tape movement, SimulSync removes that. Playback through an analog record head tends to sound very "muddy" (think low-pass filter) but it is sufficient for making musical recordings.

When I wrote the article I wanted to see how Audacity would work on a vanilla Linux system with no special kernel builds or other tricky technology that would be difficult for the average musician to install. Except for the mono-record problem, Audacity got the job done.

Note: you can avoid this step in the future by logging into your LWN account.