swap channels of selected audio

Special Interest Groups Recording Techniques
1

I want to swap the stereo channels of part of an audio but not the whole thing… how do I swap the left and right channels of a selected part of an audio??? I have a vst that removes certain things out of the right channel but it doesn’t work on removing anything from the left… part of the audio I want to keep is on the right (successfully removed that) but I need to swap the rest of the audio to the right channel to finish what I want to do…

2

Run the VST so that it processes one channel. Then use the commands in the Track Details drop down menu to split the stereo track, change the Left channel to right and the right channel to left, move the new left channel above the new right channel, select the top of this pair and use the Track Details drop down to “make stereo” once more and run the VST a second time. As a precaution against a disaster, I would begin by duplicating the stereo track and muting this second copy. If all goes well you can delete this copy. If all goes pear-shaped, you can delete the mangled track(s) and unmute this one and try again.

3

YOU DID NOT LISTEN TO ME!!! I CANNOT RUN THE VST FIRST BECAUSE IT WILL REMOVE WHAT I WANT TO KEEP!!! AND YOUR METHOD SWICHES ALL THE AUDIO!!! NOT JUST THE SELECTED REGION!!! READ WHAT I TYPE!!!

4

Typing all in upper case is considered to be “shouting”, thus “rude” and unlikely to encourage others to help you.

See here: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Splitting_and_Joining_Stereo_Tracks

5
  1. label the region to be channel swapped with a range label
  2. create a new (empty) stereo track with Tracks>Add New
  3. select the region to be channel swapped (the label ends will be “sticky” and go yellow to aid with this)
  4. copy the selected audio with Edit>Copy
  5. move to the new empty track
  6. select the same labelled region in the empty track
  7. paste the audio in with Edit>Paste
  8. use PGA’s recipe to swap the channels over
  9. select the channel swapped audio
  10. copy it with Edit > Copy
  11. move back to the originla track
  12. carefully select the labelled region again
  13. paste back the channel-swapped audio with Edit>Paste

This is likely to leave you with clicks at the transitions if the L&R channels are wildly different - you can fix thos with the repair effect or cross fades.