Question about recording or just playing with a backing trac

I'm using an interface that allows me to plug my guitar directly into my computer. When I'm just practicing I play the backing track or full version of a study THROUGH the guitar modeling software (which has an option to do that) and hear everything though my head phones.

When I record it's essentially the same. I record with Reaper. I open the backing track and have my guitar going to another track and hear everything through my headphones.

There is no sound at all going into the room. Everything is going into my headphones. I usually record about 1:00 AM, so everybody around is very happy with this arrangement.

I don't understand what you mean in the last sentence you wrote. Could you clarify it?


Left click on the screen shot below to enlarge it. You'll be able to see what looks like a tape player at the top. I'm able to open an mp3 there, play it, and mix in my live guitar.

Thanks, T-Bone, I got it now.

I normally record using garage band and a direct connect adaptor for my guitar. One track is my guitar then I insert the practice track on a track and the backing track on another. I can select what want to here, guitar only, guitar with backing track ect... I can also loop sections while I am learning.

I also have an external mic which I too sensitive for me to use yet.

I also have an attenuator that has a dirct out if I want to use my amp direct into gb, but I don't like the tone.

There are many ways, I like to practice through my amp, I use my laptop gb to play backing track into my Bose external speaker and the plug in, I find that using a real amp vs the modeling has a different feel to it.

Nursedad do you plug the MP3 player into your amp? If so that is why you here the guitar and backing track in your headphones. Solution might be using headphone out on your computer then you can use the daw to set your monitoring to what you want to hear and adjust the levels independently. But honestly I am not exactly clear on what you want to do. If I understand you want to hear your guitar only in the headphones, and the backing track somewhere else. Most probably the solution is to use the headphone from computer and use the daw to control what you want to hear.

Latency is a thought but having the two separated is what you see on stage and in the studio the guitar player, singer etc.. hears themselves in their ear piece and the band in the "room" is heard "over the ear piece" (ear pieces have replaced the monitors that faced the artist) just wanted to know if others were doing that way and if they were how so I could try it. Playing the backing track through the computer speakers is a solution I suppose.

This is a real possibility when using Audacity. As I understand it, Audacity can't use the ASIO sound driver (which reduces latency) due to the fact Audacity is open-source and ASIO is proprietary software.