I’m using audacity for a very simple purpose; I have a steady tone that I want to play from only one speaker, and another tone I want to play from the other speaker. The problem is I keep hearing both tones from both speakers. I’ve tried setting it up with only one tone from one speaker first, but have the same issue there. In Audacity, I’ve tried simply putting the balance all the way to that speaker, and I’ve tried splitting the track and then silencing the other channel. No matter what I try, I keep getting part of the tone from the other speaker. So far I’ve tried it with 3 devices (2 headsets and one speaker set) but keep running into the same issue. What confuses me more is that according to audacity it’s only playing from one speaker, yet I can still clearly hear it coming from both.
Below is a screenshot of what I’ve done.
Does anyone have any clue what’s going on here? Is it just because of my speakers?
Any help is much appreciated!
Please try this test and tell us what happens.
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Launch Audacity (if Audacity is already open, close it and then restart Audacity).
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“Generate menu > Tone” to generate a 30 second “Sine” tone, amplitude 0.5, frequency 440 Hz.
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In the track’s control panel (left end of the track), move the bottom slider (the “Pan” slider) all the way to the left.
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Click the “Play” button.
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Note what happens, then stop playback (spacebar). The sound “should” have come from your Left speaker / headphone.
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Move the track slider all the way to the right.
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Click the “Play” button.
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Note what happens. The sound “should” have come from your Right speaker / headphone.
What happened?
I tried what you said and had the same issue, the sound would predominantly play from the speaker I chose, but some would still be coming from the other speaker. When writing this I figured I should mention the headset I use, and remembered it had a surround sound switch. Upon switching this off, the problem was fixed and the tone only came from the designated speaker!
Tomorrow I will test the speakers I intend to use, and hopefully they have a similar switch. If they do not, is there a way to force them to behave similarly? Unfortunately I do not know exactly what speakers they are, but I can look tomorrow if necessary.
Thank you for the help!