Editing stereo track - channels have unlinked

[samhaywood]

Hi, This is the first time I’ve encountered this problem and fear that I must have pressed something by mistake. When I try to edit a stereo track, both channels now move independently. I would like them to be linked and move left/right together. Any help greatly appreciated!

[jademan]

@samhaywood

When I try to edit a stereo track, both channels now move independently. I would like them to be linked and move left/right together.

Tracks > Mix and Render

(Undo is your friend)

[DVDdoug]

When you export you normally get a stereo file, but make sure the pan controls to the left of the waveforms are set correctly.

Also to the left of the waveform there is a drop-down arrow with an option to Make Stereo Track.

[samhaywood]

Thanks very much. I don’t really want to mix and render before I’ve finished my editing, though. The Make Stereo option doesn’t fix my problem - that each channel can only be lengthened/shortened individually. As soon as I Split Stereo Track, there seems to be no way of undoing it so the tracks are linked again.

[billw58]

Since Audacity 3.1.0 (and the introduction of Smart Clips) it appears that the “Make Stereo Track” item in the Track Dropdown Menu creates a stereo track with two independent clips. In the screenshot you provide you can get the top clip back to match the bottom clips by hovering over the right edge of the top clip until you get the double-sided-arrow cursor, then click and drag the right edge to match the lower clip.
Unfortunately there is no way to get a “normal” stereo track with one clip encompassing both channels without doing a Mix and Render. In the meantime, avoid dragging clip edges.

[billw58]

This has been known since October 2021 and is considered “not a bug”.

Smart Clips. When a user drags the 'bulging' part of a clip handle, it moves only the clip in a particular channel.

[billw58]

Actually, the “Make Stereo Track” command always created a stereo track with independently-moveable clips in the right and left channels. It was just rarely noticed since you have to use the Time Shift tool and grab a clip (in one channel) in an area where it didn’t overlap with a clip in the other channel. The video in the GitHub topic that I linked to above shows this.
Once the two tracks are combined into one stereo track (using Make Stereo Track) all other editing operations behave normally. It is just time shifting and trimming that can happen independently in each channel.