Recording my podcast in Stereo

I am recording a podcast with 2 microphones via a Behringer UPhoria UMC202HD plugged in through USB. The audio is really good but I can’t playback in stereo. I have changed the drop down box from Mono to Stereo.

Did you record in stereo? Do you have two blue sound waves and are they different?

If you have only one,
Screen Shot 2018-03-28 at 14.01.03.png
you have a mono recording and no amount of settings is going to split it into “real” stereo—different sound left and right.

Or did I miss the question?

Koz

Hi Koz - i believe I did record in stereo. I selected “2(Stereo) Recording” from the drop down menu.
Screenshot.jpg

See those two sliders on the left? I would probably put those back to the middle. You can confuse the issue with those because they have actions that aren’t obvious.

When you play the work, do you get independent flashing L and R lights on the Audacity sound meter?

It’s just when one person speaks, it’s silent, right?

Is Left OK?

Koz

How are you listening? Are the computer speakers or headphones OK?

Koz

Computer speakers work fine. Headphones and in the car is not stereo. When listening on headphones one voice plays in the left ear and one in the right.

The 2 sliders on the left were set in the middle when recording, I changed them because the audio volume was a little low. I’m not sure about the independent flashing but yes you are correct, when one person speaks the top is silent and when the other person speaks the bottom is silent.

When listening on headphones one voice plays in the left ear and one in the right.

That’s normal stereo. Stereo is two independent sound channels. That’s what allows you to hear the violins on the left in an orchestra.

Mono Mix is what happens when you mix the two together. You still have violins, but you can’t tell where they’re coming from. Everything comes from the middle.

You want to record your podcast in stereo because that gives you two different tracks, one for each voice. That’s handy if you need to correct one without affecting the other. You are missing a step. After you make all the corrections you want, you can mix down to mono so everybody’s speaking from the middle.

Tracks > Mix > Mix stereo down to mono.

Those locations and players that seem to be doing what you want? Those are forcing your stereo show into mono before they play it to you.

If the show is a little low volume, you can boost it with an effect:

Select the show by clicking just right of the up arrow.

Effect > Normalize: Remove DC, Normalize to [-1] > OK.

Koz

I will give that a try. Thanks a lot for your help!

There is also the compromise approach.
Split the stereo track into two separate mono tracks (Select Split Stereo to Mono from the Audio track dropdown).
Now use the “pan pots” on each track to move one voice a little off center to the right and the other a little off center to the left. The resulting stereo track will sound like an interview with the voices coming from different locations with out being the extreme one voice on each speaker approach.

And it’s a good idea to Export your original show as WAV (Microsoft) for a backup before you try any of these tricks. Save the sound file under a separate name somewhere safe.

There’s just nothing like having a computer problem that takes the only copy of your show straight into the mud.

It’s a very common New User mistake to force Audacity to write corrections on top of the old files. One mistake anywhere and the show is trash.

If you don’t have a backup, you’ll be performing it again.

Koz