This is just the converse of what the Voice Narration function offers, which is a single button to start a voice recording synchronized with a video playback. However, I think I would still regard it as a nice feature if Camtasia offered a way to start the audio playback and the video recording with the click of a single button, which would guarantee they would be in sync. This solution is really no different than using another audio player, other than it saves you the trouble of opening a separate player and finding the audio file to play it. Pausing for a second or two of silence at the beginning of your voice narration will give you some flexibility to edit them so that they sync up the way you want. The only thing a little bit tricky about this method is that I have to manually sync the start of the playback and my recording, because you have to start each one separately, but I can get the hang of that. I knew you could preview a media clip with video and audio, I don't know why I assumed that wouldn't work for audio narrations, just hadn't experienced it. I am a novice with Camtasia, so I didn't know you could just click on the narration to play it-I am only used to playing media from the timeline. You can then play the audio while you record the video. This opens a Camtasia audio player and plays the narration in a separate window. Making recordings from the internet on the new PC is not a problem, but I cannot find any way of muting the sound whilst recording. I’ve now got a new Windows 10 PC in which I’ve installed Audacity 2.1.3. All you need to do is double click on the narration in the media pane. For many years I’ve been happily using an older version of Audacity to make recordings from the internet. The correct answer to the question would have been, yes, you can play an audio from Camtasia while recording video. Select the loopback option for the device you want to record audio from.
It will be marked with a (loopback) after its name. Select the output you want to use (the device youre using to listen) as the input. Audacity will try to play to a non-existent speaker or headphone system, or, as above, record at 44100 sample rate (Audio CD) but try to play back at video rate (48000), or something like that.
I guess using another audio player would have been workable too, but just seemed odd and unsatisfying. Audacity can record computer audio (including sound from YouTube, Spotify and more). It is stated above that you have to use a different audio player (other than Camtasia) to play the audio, but that is apparently not the case (at least not with Camtasia 9). Aha! So the answer stated above and also in the item from 3 yrs ago is incorrect.