I know That's what I originally wanted to do and am doing now but when you set a pre roll for say 5 seconds in the audio settings you won't hear the vocal line before it records. If i just place the playhead where I Want to begin then I hear it. Why is that? Why would you use pre roll then? That's what I find illogical.There is so many posts about this on the apple forums with no answer but thanks it's all clear now.

By the way, why does it look the way it does when you highlight with the marquee tool? I think it looks terrible. Like its barely highlighted. Can't they fix that?

I don't use Pre-roll... but having just tested it out on Logic Pro 9.1.6 in 64-bit mode it works fine - as expected... What version of Logic are you running? As for the Marquee tool, perhaps I'm just used to it, but I find it very easy to visually distinguish between a Marquee selection and normal region. Would be nice if the Logic developers allowed for more user customisation though... :)

What I usually do is set my locators around the section I want to punch, then set the auto punch inside that selection. The loop (i.e. locators) determine how long the pre-roll is. I'm not sure that's right (i.e. the "correct way to set a pre- and post-roll), but I've never had a problem hearing the track I'm punching into.

I guess Audio input monitoring was not checked. I thought it was. That is what I was having a problem with. Thanks for all your responses. it is greatly appreciated. I'm a Logic fan again