overdubbing

Do you mean having a pre-roll? If so (as that's what it sounds like), then in REAPER you just need to go to the options menu and select "metronome and pre-roll settings". Then look near the bottom: there will be bullets for pre-roll before playback and pre-roll before recording (which is what you want). You can then set the number of measures and, when you hit record, you'll have that many measures of the original signal playing before punching in where you placed the time selection. If this isn't what you're talking about, perhaps you could describe it a bit more in detail. -Mike

I am not entirely sure, but I think you should try the "monitor track media while recording" option in the input/monitoring menue of the track in question. Hope it helps :)

i will def. give that a try. thanks for the suggestion!

Gofer, thanks! That surely helps me. Although not perfect in that when i'm done I have to highlight both items, right click and choose "play all takes" under item settings in order to hear both takes in their entirety on playback, it still is a vast improvement over what i was doing. now if only there was either a global or track setting for "play all takes" that one could enable prior to recording.....oh well. thanks again guys!

The way I do this, unless I'm missing something in your post, is Highlight the section you want to record Put the cursor where you want playback to start Right click on the record button Select Time selection autopunch Hit record and it will play the part and punch in and out automatic during the selected section of the track Highlight the next section etc