Moderator noteI split this topic of from the Feature Request that it was piggybacking on - not least as I was about to archive the original thread as planned.
Personally I don’t know a damn thing about scripting and I really don’t care to learn because it just won’t click into place. All I want is to record a macro for one purpose only. I convert a lot of sounds from mono to stereo. I’m not going to go further into that because it isn’t relevant to the topic, but the important thing is that I repeat the following steps tediously one after another.
Ctrl+D (or Edit > Duplicate) > top Track Drop Down > Left Channel > bottom Track Drop Down > Right Channel > Make Stereo Track. Again, why I do this isn’t important. I understand that even though it’s now stereo, it’s still mono. No really, I know this. It is for the purpose of creating ringtones from sounds. Some sounds are stereo and some mono, and you cannot insert a stereo track into a mono track so I have to convert them. Yes, I could do it the other way around, but the longer tracks are the mono one and it is just much easier to insert the quick chirps that are stereo.
So! I would love to be able to record those steps because I use them over and over and over again. I don’t know what a chain is but whatever it is, it’s something I don’t feel like learning just for the sake of a few keystrokes. lol! It just seems that for routine keystrokes, we should be able to record macros like you can in other open source software like Open Office.
I’m not complaining that it’s not there, mind you. That’s not my intention at all. I’m just saying that for us silly and seriously inexperienced users, it could be helpful. My suggestion is gently intended, I assure you.
Many thanks though for an awesome piece of software. I love this thing and have been a steadfast user for many MANY years. Cheers to you all!
I suppose we could consider a Track Dropdown Menu item for mono/left/right tracks “Duplicate to Stereo” but I doubt many would use it. Developers may argue that we already have a Duplicate menu item so should not make an extra menu item in the track dropdown. I might even argue that myself.
It’s “off topic” if I go into detail, so very briefly, that is a really long-winded way of doing it.
Audacity is designed to be a “multi-track” audio editor, so there is absolutely no need to put all of the clips on one track. All tracks that are not muted are mixed down automatically when you export. Alternatively, if you prefer to put all the snippets into one track,then all that you need to do is create one new stereo track and paste the audio bits in it in any order that you choose. There is no need to convert each mono track to stereo. Mono audio can be pasted into a stereo track.
Also off topic but Audacity could do the equivalent of Tracks > Stereo Track to Mono when pasting a stereo clip into a mono track. The only real danger is that some people may have been lazily intending to paste only one channel or the other and could then assume that’s what Audacity actually did.
The warning about can’t paste stereo to mono could become a full dialogue with “Don’t show again” checkbox that offers to average to mono. If you choose “Yes” with the checkbox enabled then Audacity always averages to mono without warning.
Yes even more useful if there is a market for exotic choices and people don’t mind having to answer the question every time. Certainly better than what we have now.
