Bass in Audacity

Special Interest Groups Recording Equipment
1

Hello everybody. I’ve got a question for you regarding the recording of electric bass guitar in Audacity.

My Audacity version is the latest one: 2.1.1., and my PC version is Windows 8.1.

I recently purchased a Focusrite Scarlett Solo interface to record my guitars and bass thru Audacity. f I decide to record it in Mono, nothing is recorded --maybe the sound goes thru the other channel; I don’t know. So I record it in Stereo --two channels recording. To my surprise, the recorded bass is only recorded in one channel --right channel–. Then I convert the track into Mono, but the sound is nasty. The sound of the bass recorded in Stereo is much better even if it’s only recorded in Right Channel than the Mono sound when I convert it through the Audacity options. So my questions are:

  • Is it possible record my bass in Stereo, so both channels are filled?

  • Do you think that the Mono sound will be better if I could record my bass DIRECTLY in Mono rather than convert it after being recorded in Stereo --but only in one channel?

  • Why is there no sound at all when I try to record it DIRECTLY in Mono?

Well,I hope you understand me. I’m not an expert. Thank you for your answers!

2

That seems expected to me when you are connecting only to channel 2 on the interface (the line/instrument input). You record an empty track when you record in mono because mono is recording channel 1. Audacity does not yet have a way to set input 2 to channel 1.

How do you convert? What you can do is use the Audio Track Dropdown Menu to Split Stereo to Mono, then click the button top left of the upper track.


Gale