Mono vs Stereo Channel

I am in Audacity 3.3.3 and there is no way to change channels from Mono to Stereo. Am I wrong?

You can’t convert mono to true-stereo… What are you trying to accomplish?

A true-mono file will play through both speakers.

A single instrument or voice is mono except “wide” instruments like a piano or drum kit can be recoded in stereo (with 2 or more microphones).

There are some “fake stereo” effects but Audacity doesn’t have one built-in.

Hello, I am recording student voiceovers for a documentary film. It seems the mono track is quiter than the stereo track. I can’t get the voice between -12 and -6 decimals with mono. There used to be a stereo track with I liked better and now its gone.

I assume you’re are you recording in mono with a stereo audio interface?

When you do that, Audacity cuts the signals in half (-6dB) so you don’t exceed 0dB both inputs are combined (summed) to mono.

You have two options -

  1. Run the Amplify or Normalize effect after recording. (Normally you should be leaving some headroom when recording so you are probably doing that already.)

  2. Record in stereo and delete the silent channel to create mono.

If you want to record a single mic as “looks like stereo” 2 channel recording use a splitter/combiner adaptor OR make up a lead… to connect the mic to both Left and Right imput of your PC input… and then set Audacity settings Recording to 2 channels.

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