In the upper right corner, there is a microphone icon and L and R for left and right channels. When I record, the left channel is a tad louder than the right. I can’t seem to get them to line up. What do I do? All of my recordings are slightly left-channel strong. (Yes, I can fix it in post, but that doesn’t seem like the real answer).
It’s probably a real difference in the source.
What are you recording from? Two mics? A USB turntable? Etc.?
How much difference is there? A couple of dB wouldn’t be that unusual in an analog setup.
Or, sometimes in the Windows settings there are separate left & right adjustments. It’s probably NOT your ADC or Audacity.
Hello. My MacBook is hooked up to a Xenyx 802S and I’m using the USB input. There is no pan on the USB output and I’ve checked the balance on the Mac’s USB audio. Dead center. It’s not a huge difference, the L and R lines are slightly out of whack. Maybe 1 or 2 db (?). Here I was blaming others for giving me unbalanced files, when it was me! I tried resetting Audacity, but it’s still off. I guess there could be a slight bias in the board’s output, but I was wondering if I could manually adjust Audacity to account for it, rather than having to knock down the left channel a tad in post. Thanks for your input.
It’s probably the mixer. If you can use two mono inputs you’ll have pan & two separate level controls.
Sometimes stereo pots don’t “track” left & right perfectly. If the recording level pot is the problem, left & right should match at maximum volume and they might deviate as you attenuate.
If somebody is giving you “files” you shouldn’t have to re-digitize them. 
(But it may be more convenient to use an analog mixer.)
Hi again. The only input to the mixer is my mic cable. Otherwise, it’s a USB cord from the computer to the mixer. The higher left channel level occurs whether I record a program or I import an mp3 from someone else (so the board isn’t in play there). Very mysterious. I guess there is no easy fix. Thanks for your input (LOL).
Although maybe not on the imported files. Hmmm. Probably the board.
I quit Audacity 14 and am going back to using Audacity 12. Seems to work better.
Left ch. still stronger, but it’s less noisier when I start recording. The recording line on the left channel is thicker than on the right before I start doing any audio (on Audacity 14). Don’t know if I can attach ay pictures here.
Just one mic? One microphone (or one voice or one instrument) is mono. When I looked-up your mixer it has pan pots on the “mono” microphone inputs.
Or, a true-mono file will play equally in the left & right channels. That’s a better solution if you’re not mixing with stereo music, or if you otherwise need a stereo production.
And if you happen to be making WAV files a mono file will be half the size. (With compressed formats it doesn’t matter.)
The compression algorithms (FLAC or MP3 Joint Stereo, etc.) are “smart enough” to know if left & right are the same or similar and they don’t duplicate the data. But you may not want a file showing-up as “stereo” if both sides are the same.
Wow, you know a lot! Yes, I usually just use one mic for my radio show, although sometimes I use to if I have a guest which is why I got the 2-mic mixer). I rarely use the other inputs, although I have in the past for material recorded on a cassette deck or reel-to-reel. The pan setting for the mic is set at “0” – or straight up and down. The USB brings in the stereo music to the mix from my computer. When I am “live,” Audacity isn’t recording, but the program does create a separate recording of the program straight to DropBox. So yeah, I need stereo production. Hope that makes sense.
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