How to get Audio-technica 2020 USB to record in stereo

Just purchased this mic. Attached to my mac and can only get it to record as a mono signal. Would appreciate some advise.

Thanks.

I have no problem getting my AT2020USB to record in stereo.
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The question is, why do you want to record in stereo? The two channels are identical, so it is a waste of disk space.
What version of OS X are you running, on what machine?

– Bill

Thanks for your response.

Here’s more info. I’m running OSX 10.4.11 on 2GHz intel Core Duo MacBook Pro with 1GB ram. I’m a saxophone player and will be recording myself playing to a series of pre-recorded backing tracks. Since my original post I’ve downloaded and installed Audacity 2.0 which now recognizes my mic as stereo when I select a stereo track. However you still raise a good point. I’m thinking that since my backing tracks are all stereo I should record myself in stereo too … but would greatly appreciate additional feedback as I am really new to using this software and to recording for that matter.

There’s no need to record the microphone as a stereo track unless you want to apply a stereo effect to the track (such as stereo reverb, ping-pong delay, stereo chorus…). I think that’s the only reason why you may need to use a stereo track for a mono source (such as a normal microphone).

Audacity can handle a mixture of mono tracks and stereo tracks. If required, both mono and stereo tracks can be panned left/right using the track pan slider.