Mix Down

I recorded a track from a cassette in stero, and when I exported it to a destination folder, it gave me a warning and then mixed it down to Mono. I couldn’t find any answers in the FAQ or the manual as to why. I’m wondering if I have a setting wrong somewhere.

Audacity Preferences > Warnings.

Koz

But I was wondering why it didn’t export as stereo?

As far as I’m aware. the only way that Audacity can export a mono file is if all enabled (not muted) audio tracks in the project are mono.
Are you absolutely sure that the recording was stereo? (Stereo tracks show two channels, as in this picture: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/#reference )

It was a commercially recorded cassette by tom petty (full moon fever). I just recorded the one song off the tape before I exported it when I got the warning message that it was being mixed down to mono. Evidently it was a stereo recording since I got that message. I don’t know if a track might have been muted because it’s gone now. I will try it again and make sure that a track isn’t muted and see if I get the same result. Anyway, its no big problem, I just thought that might be an easy answer. Thanks for responding.

No, if it is a stereo recording the message will say:
“Your tracks will be mixed down to two stereo channels in the exported file.”

It probably is. Before you start recording next time, check that the “number of input channels” is set to “2 (stereo)” in the Device Toolbar ( see: Audacity Manual )