Panning Help?

Special Interest Groups Audio Processing
1

Hey folks. I’m using Audacity to chop up samples for my mpc.

There a bunch of material that I want to use, where I only want one channel. So I can pan it to the left, obviously, and just hear the piece I want. But I want to re-record it somehow, so it will play just what’s there on the Left channel, but have it play in both speakers evenly.

Any ideas?

2

Select “Split stereo to mono” to convert your stereo track into two mono ones …
Split stereo to mono.png
then delete the unwanted mono track by clicking on the “X” on the top left of that track.

3
  1. Split the Stereo track (in 1.3 you can “split stereo to mono”)
  2. selete the unwanted one
  3. use Tracks > Add New > Audio Track
  4. Copy the first track into your paste buffer - select it and use CTRL+C
  5. select the empty second track and past the audio in
  6. Join the two mono channels into a stero track

The split and join commands are all accessed from the little-sownward-pointing-black-triangle thingy at the top right of the track control box.

WC

4

That works, but is unnecessarily complicated.

In Audacity 1.3.12 al you need to do is (as desribed by Trebor):

  1. Split to mono
  2. Delete the unwanted track. The remaining (mono) track will play equally from both speakers.


    Other options:

In Audacity 1.2.6:

  1. Split Stereo Track (there is no “split to mono” option).
  2. Set the track that you want to keep (using the track drop down menu) to mono.
  3. Delete the other track.

In either version of Audacity, if you specifically want a 2 channel (stereo) track (you would not normally need to do this unless you are wanting to apply stereo effects such as reverb to the track):

  1. Make a mono track as above,
  2. then duplicate the track (Ctrl+D)
  3. From the drop down menu of the upper track select “Make Stereo Track”
5

Well so it does, just tested it - I never realized that - “you learn something new evey day” as my old mother used to say … :blush:


Question: what happens if you export a single mono track like this to a WAV file? Does it produce a stereo pair with the same on both tracks. Underlying question: will such a WAV play properly on MP3 players and iPods?

WC

6

If ALL tracks being exported are mono, then the exported file will be one channel mono.

I’ve not got an iPod, but I’ll stick my neck out and say yes it will play correctly. The difference is that a mono MP3 will be higher quality sound than a 2 channel (mono) MP3 at the same bit rate, so you have the option of having better quality sound, or reduce the bit rate and have a smaller file.

7

Thanks you guys! This is awesome.