very basic question about a monitoring a mic

[Willie Myers]

h'lo all,
I've got PT9 and an 002R. hard to believe, but I haven't had to hook up a mic and do a vocal for years, as it's all been midi/orchestral.
Anyway, I plugged an SM 58 in to the back of the 002R, opened a mono track in PT9, put it in record-ready and could hear the mic just fine.
Recorded a pass of vocals, but now time to punch in. Put PT9 in QuickPunch, back to top of track, and here's the rub.
I'm in "Auto Input Monitoring" with th track in record-ready. I can hear the live mic. But as soon as I roll playback (to do a punch-in), I lose the live mic in my phones. I can hear the existing track playing back and, when I do punch in, I can hear the live mic.
But I need to hear the live mic *while* I'm hearing the track playback, in order for the singer to "sing along" with the existing track up to the point of punch in. Is this possible?
many thanks,
b myers composer

[ondruspat]

Alt+K toggles the auto input monitoring on and off.

[albee1952]

I've never had a singer ask to hear the mic live BEFORE the punch-in That's the point of Auto-Input monitoring. The talent (usually) needs to hear the track before they start singing at the punch point as a reference and cue. I tell them to sing along and also I tell them where I intend to punch. If your singer truly needs to hear the live mic, would that be in addition to, or instead of the track? If its in addition, I would create a new track. Am I making any sense or do we just have different techniques?

[Craig F]

I'm with albee on this but the workaround is to make an Aux track with the same I/O as the record track, the rub is you need to mute the Aux track when you punch.