Mono Recordings Opening as 2 Channel Stereo

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

I’ve been putting together a podcast over the last few weeks, adding music etc. Then at the weekend I was editing some material and what I thought were mono tracks, were opening as stereo. I’ve been editing them previously and adding music with them as mono. How could this have happened?
If I try and switch them back into mono then I lose the left or right as the levels are different. Even music tracks & jingles are opening as stereo when they weren’t before.
Any advice welcome, thank you very much

Using windows 10 & 2.3.3

2

If you export a mono track from Audacity and it becomes stereo, that is probably because you accidentally moved the track “Pan” slider before exporting (See: https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/audio_tracks.html#pan)

If that’s the only problem, then it’s easy to fix.
Just split the stereo track to two mono tracks (see: https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/splitting_and_joining_stereo_tracks.html)
Then delete the quieter of the two tracks by clicking on the [X] in the top left corner of the track.

3

Hi Steve

Thanks for your reply. I’m not sure this is what happened, all I had done is opened one which was previously mono, as now stereo - no export.
I understand the remedy to repair this, but the levels are different in the recording now, will I not lose quality as it does sound washed out when I create a single mono track.
Is there no other way to group them back together as one, without ‘deleting’ something?
Cheers
Nick