I'm using the (I know, very sad) setup of Audacity on Windows 7 with an onboard sound card, and using the mic on a Microsoft LifeCam.
I'm dragging an MP3 into audacity, and then attempting to record a vocal track to it.
At first I thought I was horribly off beat, but then someone mentioned that this was most likely a latency problem.
I honestly think the mic on the USB webcam is fine, sound-quality-wise for my experiments, but the latency is a dealbreaker.
Do I need to purchase a decent soundcard? Will a PCI soundcard work or do I need something external? Do I need to get a real vocal mic with line out?
I did try installing ASIO4ALL, but it doesn't look like there's an easy way to make it work with audacity OR my onboard sound card driver, and I'm not even sure that would solve the problem.
I am an absolute newb, so knowing what questions I need to answer or just a general direction to look for hardware or software would be a great help. I'm eventually willing to invest in equipment but I REALLY want to be able to make some proof-of-concept recordings before I invest more than the absolute bare minimum.