I am working on some new tunes in my home studio. I am recording using a Korg D3200 32 track recorder. I would love to hook up with some of the guitarists here at CMR and have them do the solos for the record. I would also like to find a willing CMR vocalist to handle the vocals this time around.

Does anyone have any suggestions about how to sync your WAV files to my recorder to make it easier to line up the guest guitar/vocal parts?

I might be interested in throwing down a few licks for ya'

And about syncing wav files, just keep everything on a click track and it'll fall into place.

I also offer my services on guitar. And... an attempt to answer your question.
Are you trying to add already recorded tracks to a stand alone recording unit? If that is the case, it would really depend on the specific unit. I would recommend checking a manual or a forum for home recording.

If you are asking about lining things up on a PC based audio editor, just ask all your guest musicians to record silence from the beginning of the song until their part comes in. Then just have all the extra tracks start at zero.

I'm just using the stand alone recorder. I have no software based editting powers. I will be checking the manual to see what kind of editting I can do. I know I can add parts recorded on a CD to my preexisting mix. But, making them line up is what I don't know how to do.

But, I will learn!

You might also look into seeing how difficult it would be to transfer from you stand alone to a pc. if it is relatively easy (USB cable, cd burner etc.) it might be beneficial to put the tracks on a computer and use something free like audacity to line them up. It is by no means a pro grade peice of software, but for that purpose it would be fine.

My unit does not have a USB port on it. I would have to mix each individual track into a separate wav file to put into the computer. I can imagine that this would be a long, drawn out process.

Alldat,
Do you have a click track counting in at the beginning of your songs? If so include the click in the mix. When some one goes to record there part have them leave that click part at the beginning of there track as well. Then match up there click with yours. They should be synced up. If not the people doing tracks for you can use the beginning section of the song and leave it in there clip so you can sync it up with your tracks.

That's doable, for sure. But, before I go this route, I am talking to some local musicians about possibly doing guitars and vocals for me. Then, I can focus from this point on more towards mixing. I'm tired of doing "good" projects--I want to do something that really makes people go "WOW!"

If I had any sort of tech, I would offer my voice...alas, I don't.

Ok, I had a guitar player send me a track and I was able to use my laptop to get it onto my recorder. It took a take or two (he had no click--recorded straight from my demo track on MySpace!) to get it matched, but it matched.

But, now I have a problem. I tried running the recorder's headphone out to the microphone jack on the laptop. I could barely hear anything, and I made sure that all my levels were up. Is there another way to get the sound on there? Should I invest in an outboard sound card that would plug into my USB ports?

I want to be able to rough mix these songs down for some of you guitarists and maybe a vocalist with the click track at the beginning as Jon suggested. Then, I can have all my rowdy CMR buddies on my CD and really make this sound amazing!

Doesn't your recorder have a CD burner? If so do a mix on the recorder and burn it to a re-writeable CD-R. That way your not wasting regular CD-R's. Does your Korg recorder have a USB on it? You could always use it.

The Korg DOES have a USB I found out yesterday (after owning it for about 3 years). I couldn't get any sound from the board to the computer through it, though. That's why I was asking about the outboard soundcard.

I never thought about the CD-RW trick. Can we record directly to it without having to do a mix on the hard drive?

Do you have the manual? The USB port on the back is for data back up. You transfer files from that to your computer. It might have a special partition on the hard disc recorders drive that you can put file for transfer. Anyway with your recorder you should be able to do a mix down internally and put it on to your computer from the USB port.
As for the CD-R you have to mix down first.

I played around with my laptop some this morning. I updated all the drivers for the sound cards. I made sure my recording levels were turned up. I checked the properties for the sound card, and it is showing that it is not plugged in.

So, I guess it's time to take it to a professional to solve this problem.

I took my computer to Computer Renaissance in
Nashville. The soundcard IS connected, but one program had taken
exclusive use to the microphone. So, unless you opened that particular
program, the mic was dead. The tech fixed it in about 35 seconds and
showed me what to do. He didn't charge me anything.

Now, I can do what I wanted to do in the first place!