Hey guys, so I recorded a Mono track using a guitar and line in jack on my sound blaster. When I play it back I only hear music through my center speaker of my pc’s 5.1 surround sound. I did a little research and tried the suggestion on duplicating the tracks and saving as custom forming a 6 channel wav file. Followed everything as suggested, but now I only hear through center/sub and back speakers. No sound comes through my left/right front main speakers. Any suggestions on how to fix this? Those are my main goals to have music coming through, I could care less about the back, can’t seem to get a stereo mix correct. You would think If I dup, set top left channel, bottom left channel, then make stereo track, it would play out the front speakers, instead it just plays out the center.
I could care less about the back, can’t seem to get a stereo mix
If you don’t need the center channel you can make a stereo file with the same information in the left & right channels.
Starting with a single mono track -
Track → Add New - Audio Track
Click the original track.
Edit → Select All
Edit → Copy
Click the new blank track and move the cursor all the way to the left
Edit → Paste
Click the little drop-down arrow to the left of the new track and select Right Channel
Click the drop-down arrow next to the first waveform and click Left Channel.
Export as usual.
When I play it back I only hear music through my center speaker of my pc’s 5.1 surround sound.
FYI - A mono file played back on a regular 2-channel system will come out of both speakers.
Your 5-channel WAV file should have worked, but I’ve never made a surround-sound WAV file… I’ve only made 5.1 Channel Dolby AC3 for DVDs, and that was with different software.
I’ve tried what you posted, and many different variations. Somehow I must be doing something wrong. I record a guitar through my line in jack using a mono signal and cable. When the track is in Audacity it only plays from my center speaker. If I try to dup and make it stereo, it will only play out one side or the other + the center. All I want is a balanced signal from left to right, and it doesn’t seem I’m able to achieve this doing any simple methods. I should be able to record a guitar track and hear it through both right/left speakers right? Not one or the other. Even with panning the tracks manually I can only get one or the other. I’m aware this may or may not be an Audacity problem. Any other tips I could try?
On a stereo playback system, yes you can do it very simply. A mono (single channel) track in Audacity will play equally through both left and right speakers.
Audacity does not support multi-channel playback. Playback from Audacity is mono or stereo only. Audacity is not able to control how a surround sound system handles mono or stereo playback. The simplest solution is to play back through a normal stereo playback system. Your surround sound system may have a setting to make it compatible with normal 2 channel playback.
To make a 2 channel track, duplicate the single channel mono track, then from the track drop down menu of the upper track (click on the track name of the upper track), select “Make Stereo Track”.