I produce a podcast with Audacity. Normally everything is great but on two occasions the exported mp3 is bearly/not audible to some but not all. The intro is usually fine but the interviews can’t be heard by some listeners. That’s the weird thing - most can hear it fine but some have issues. The issues seem to be related to bluetooth. Is there anything I can try to rectify it?
Usually that means you have a “dual mono” file with the left & right channels out-of-phase. When it’s played on a mono system the two channels mix & cancel.
Open the file and you’ll probably see two tracks (left & right).
To the left of the waveform there is a drop-down arrow. Slick that and select Split Stereo to Mono. (This allows you to edit the two channels separately.)
To the left of that drop-down arrow you’ll see the file name, then an “X”. Click the “X” for one of the tracks to delete it.
Export it and you will have a true-mono file. (When you play a mono on a stereo setup it will play through both speakers.)
Now, assuming that fixes it… The question is how did that happen? Did you record it yourself or did you get the file somewhere else?
This drives production managers nuts. How come of the four clients, one of them can’t hear a thing?
Because that one is listening in mono instead of stereo.
One common cause of that is a simple wired adapter to go from an XLR microphone to the stereo MIC-IN of a laptop (scroll down).
https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/devils-adapter/46592/1
Koz
Thanks Koz - I have a devil’s adaptor - it now makes sense!
That’s worked - thank you so much!! I recorded the audio myself but it looks like my adaptor should have never been used. See the Koz post. Really appreciated.
If you know it’s going to do that and you know how to fix it and you have no other good way to produce a good quality voice, then go for it. It’s when the system catches you off guard that it causes “magic” problems.
Koz