How do I record Left/Right as separate Tracks from RCA Output

Audacity 3 Help Forum Windows
1

Good Day,

I have a Win11 Laptop running Audacity 3.1.3

I have a very old DAT (tape) player that has RCA output jacks. What is the best way to record the Left and Right as “separate” tracks in Audacity. I tried with a mixing board with USB out, and it plays the same audio content to both the left and the right in Audacity. Would a simple RCA cable to 3.5mm work directly inputted to the Laptop and what settings would you make in Audacity?

The DAT tapes have the Presenter talking on the Left with one microphone and Students asking questions on the Right with another microphone. I need to be able extract the audio to MP3 and to edit the tracks individually (left and right).

Thank you for your help in answering. I have spent hours and cannot figure out how to separate the L/R audio into tracks.

James

2

Try Split Stereo to Mono in the Audio Track Dropdown Menu.

3

3.5mm work directly inputted to the Laptop and what settings would you make in Audacity?

You need line-in (normally blue on a regular soundcard in a desktop computer). Most laptops only have mono mic-in and stereo headphone-out.

You can get a USB audio interface with line inputs. The Behringer UCA202 is popular and inexpensive but it doesn’t have a recording level control. …That’s only a problem if the signal is too hot and you clip (distort) the analog-to-digital converter. Or there are lots of [u]higher-end[/u] with switchable mic/line inputs. Most of these have TS/TRS/XLR combo jacks so you’d need an [u]RCA adapter[/u].