I need to combine two mono sound tracks into one stereo sound track such that each channel contains one mono sound track, and the separations between channels in the stereo sound track is as big as possible.
In other words, I need to store two independent tracks in two channels of a single stereo track.
My experience with processing sound tracks is virtually none.
I downloaded Audacity with a hope that this tool will help me generate a sound I need.
I was able to read the original track tracks (.wav format), then I created a new sound, this one being simply a sinusoidal waveform.
Unfortunately I was not able to merge them together into one stereo track which would have required channel separation.
Is such file merging is possible under Audacity? If it is possible, can somebody tell me how to do it?
Import both shows one after the other. They will appear in Audacity one over the other as “MONO” shows.
Smash each L…R fader all the way to the direction you want each one to be. Export WAV (Microsoft).
I’m using a quirk of Audacity stereo management. The instant you touch the L…R fader, you have a stereo show whether you think you do or not. Audacity will push both tracks into a single stereo show when you export.
Open the new show and it should be a stereo show with 100% stereo separation.
Thank you very much for your help. I was experimenting with balance sliders, but it did not cross my mind that exported separate wave files are merged into a single file. Devil’s in the details.
Next possibility:
Import both (mono) tracks
Click the track drop down menu on the track that will eventually become the left channel and choose “Make stereo”
This track and the one below it form now a stereo track and you can listen to it without first exporting - or even setting up the pan sliders.
You can also use Koz’ method but instead of exporting, choose “Mix and Render” from the Tracks menu. Make sure that both tracks are selected.
By the way, perfect stereo separation implies to me that the two channels have practically nothing in common.
You can use “Vocal Reduction and Isolation” → “Analyze” to measure the degree of correlation of the two stereo channels, where 0 % means no shared content and 100 % means that the channels are identical.
Thanks very much to Robert for another suggestion.
I believe I owe you both (Koz and Robert) a word of explanation why I’m doing it. I need to create a wave which would carry two pieces of information: one channel being a sound (for instance speech, but not necessary), another–a control signal associated with that sound. For initial experiments I am using a PC, so frequency range in the control channel is limited to audio sounds only.
So this is why I want to get as high channel separation as possible. I realize that in real life there will always be some crosstalk (through connectors, cables, etc.), but the work I am doing now is proof of concept. I will clean the design later.
Looking for a tool which would allow me to experiment with this concept I found Audacity. It looks like I simply tripped over user interface issues.