Audacity Forum

I have some music that seems to have been recorded in mono. I'd like to make them into stereo, but can't seem to select a stereo setting. Only the mono is highlighted.

It appears as a "Stereo Mix" but only one waveform shows up. I want to create a balanced Left and Right waveform.

Help!

Click on the Track's name in Audacity. You'll notice that this is a menu, I'll call it the track menu from here on out.

1) Click on the track menu and select "Split Stereo Track"

You'll have two tracks now, one labeled Left and one labeled Right

2) Go ahead and delete the empty track. Highlight the remaining track and Copy / Paste it to a new track (click on the empty space below the track and press [ctrl]+v to paste to a new track).

You'll now have two identical tracks sitting side by side.

3) Click on the track menu for the track on top and select "Make Stereo Track"

Now you can export that clip as a Stereo file (albeit with only mono information).

Thanks Alatham:

Unfortunately, the "Split Stereo Track" is not highlighted.

When you said "It appears as a "Stereo Mix" but only one waveform shows up." What exactly did you mean? Is it a stereo clip with information in only one channel, or is it a single track?

If it's just a single track, skip to the second half of step 2 of my previous post. Starting with "Highlight the remaining track..."

Hi Alatham:

Unfortunately, when I open the file with Audacity (or any other audio editor) it comes up as a mono track. The Make and Split Stereo Track options are not highlighted at all.

I should mention that these are songs in .mp3 format.

1) Import the track
2) Ctrl+A (select All)
3) Ctrl+D (Duplicate)
4) Click on the track name of one track and set to "Left Channel"
5) Click on the name of the other track and set to "Right Channel"
6) Export (from file menu)

Just because I answered a similar question a short time ago, you're not going to get "Stereo." You're going to get two-track mono--that is, exactly the same thing on both left and right. The poster that I answered was expecting that he could push a button and suddenly, the performance would be in actual stereo, with the violins on the left and the trumpets on the right.

It doesn't work like that. You will get exactly the same mono show, everything sounds like it's in the middle, just carried by two audio tracks.

The poster was trying to use "Center Pan Removal" which depends for proper operation on having left and right instruments, only he was trying to apply it to a mono show.

That doesn't work, either.

Koz