Audacity Forum

Ah, there's the rub. Do you know if your minidisc recorder recorded one channel only (usually the left channel if so) or summed the L and R? In any case, there's nothing you can do about it now. I transferred 2 or 3 particularly prized minidiscs 2 or 3 months ago. I have to assume they showed as 2 ...

If the MP3 is mono there is obviously no point in mixing L and R. If the MP3 is stereo, it might or might not exhibit vertical groove noise. If you import a mono MP3 into Audacity it will show up as one track. If you import a stereo MP3 it will show up as two tracks - but those two tracks might or ...

I never heard of an mp3 player that will not play VBR mp3s.

I know nothing about OGG files and would guess compatibility varies between brands of portable players. I don't own one.

Do you mean export a captured sound file at a higher rate than mp3? I do that all the time. I use quality 2, VBR, and joint stereo. The resulting mp3s are generally around 200 kbps bit rate, give or take. The setting is done at the moment of export, from the "options" button at the lower right of th...

Normalize sets both stereo channels to the same level, while amplify does not. If you have a quiet passage in the left channel and a simultaneous loud signal in the right channel, you might not like normalize in that case because it would bring the left channel way up and might not sound faithful to...

Bill: Thanks for the comments. I'm not sure I grasp it all, but let me give you some more details. You state you would likely follow Davies, which I take to mean that you would in fact combine L and R and then possibly listen for phase issues in the result. The advantage of Davies recommendation bei...

Koz: Thanks for the response. Please clarify on the following points if you can: You only get annoying phasing problems if your stereo performance had significant differences between "left" and "right" and you listened to the show on a mono speaker. Minor phasing problems show as muffled, woolly sou...

Do you agree with this statement I found on the net and how frequently might it be significant when dealing with a 2 channel recording of a monaural source--typically a pre-1958 recorded performance: "If the source is a stereo tape or CD, but the sound is mono, don't mix L & R into a mono signal. An...

Many mixers will have a "microphone boost" check box buried in a menu somewhere. I used to do a lot of voice recording and found that mikes were often all but useless if that "boost" was not chosen. I have no idea if your setup has such a control, but I urge you to check and recheck any and all menu...

Thanx so much for replying Ignatz -- much quicker than Tascam! :) OK what you are saying makes me think perhaps I have 1.2 not 1.3 Audacity -- I don't have a 'split stereo to mono' option on the drop-down ('inverted triangle') menu -- I just have an option that says 'split stereo track'. I've been ...