Recording Separate Sounds on Left/Right Channel

Hey, I was wondering if anyone could help me figure out how to record separate guitar parts that would play through left and right channel.
If I were to record Part A, but I only wanted the sound to go through the left channel of my headphones, and I recorded Part B only wanting that to go through the right channel of my headphones, at the same time, how would I do that? Thanks.

I think you picked up the movie a little too far in. How did you get the two sound files and are they actually two different files? How did you keep them in sync or rhythm with each other and did you use Audacity Overdubbing?

You may not actually want what you said. That will sound very odd when one fingering only appears in one ear. You’re going to want to keep snapping your head back and forth as the performance goes along. That will sound very unnatural.

Normal performances have the two guitars slightly pushed to left and right. This gives you a stage locator effect. The lead guitar is over there [points slightly to the left] and the harmony guitar is over there [points to right]. You can do this easily even if the two guitars are both you and were recorded in mono.

That’s all the good news. If you already have a mono sound file with both guitars on it, that’s the end of the world. You can’t convert that to a stereo show with split guitars.

Koz

Koz,

Thanks for the information. However, I think I didn’t explain what I am wanting thoroughly. What I am trying to say is I want to record my song, with a guitar and vocals. I just want to experiment around, and record one time (A) (all in the same file) the intro but only have it recorded through the left headphone. Then, record a second (B) time with that piece playing through the right headphone.Then, the finished product, I can listen to the song with Part A playing through the left, and Part B playing through the right, as the final product. Though it may not sound good, it’s all experimenting. Do you know how to go about this process? Thanks.

Record the two tracks, then use the “Pan” sliders to pan them left / right : http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/audio_tracks.html#pan

Every time you press Record in Audacity, it will start a whole new track underneath the older ones, and they will all play at the same time unless you set it not to. You can easily create multiple different sound tracks like that.

However. You can’t easily hear the old tracks while you play the new ones to keep the rhythm constant. It doesn’t work when the first track is three minutes and the second one is three minutes and four seconds.

I suspect you really want to do Overdubbing where the old tracks play in your headphones while you play the new tracks to keep you in rhythm.

http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/tutorial_recording_multi_track_overdubs.html

Once you create a number of different tracks, you can use many different tools to create a show or production. See: Pan Sliders above.

Koz