left-Right Channel Balance?

[hellosailor]

OK, maybe I'm missing something obvious. I have no hardware options for setting channel balance, and the tape deck I'm using as an input seems to be a bit hot on the right channel, so I'd like to compensate in Audacity by shifting the track balance, either boosting left or cutting right.

I don't see any way to do this, unless I wait until after the recording, split the tracks, and then use an "Effect" on one of them. Which sometimes seems to distort sound.

Is there something Real Simple Stupid that I'm missing, that allows for a real balance control in Audacity?

[kozikowski]

If you mean "real time," no. Audacity doesn't do anything in real time.

It's a lot easier than what you said. Channel balance is a simple setting to the left of the track. Oddly enough, it's the L-R control. It doesn't change the blue waveform, but the bouncing lights sound meter will change. You have to be careful with Effect > Amplify because of what you said; it's really easy to damage the hotter of the two tracks.

I would be cleaning my cables with paper towels and a little rubbing alcohol/Windex®. Dirt or corrosion can affect balance. Don't touch the ends of audio cables. Your skin oil can mess things up. It's slightly acedic and attacks the metal surface.

Koz

[hellosailor]

Koz, I've tried the L-R control and it only affects PLAYBACK here. Did nothing for recording volume.

The cables are as clean as they can be, no problem there, and even reversing them won't make the 3db difference that's coming out of the tape player. What can I tell you: My audiophile player refuses to play (terminal old age, too much to fix AGAIN), my borrowed "pretty good" player needed a new belt (old age) and snapped a plastic part on the play button getting that; my borrowed portable high end player has one hot track; my high end walkman (yes, there is such a thing) doesn't make enough volume for a good line in setting on the sound car, and makes too much (clips) if used on the MIC settings.

Someone upstairs doesn't want me to migrate to electronic files.<G> Don't ask how long it took me to find a sound card that worked, or why my new laptop only has a mono mic input--no line inputs at all!

[kozikowski]

<<<I've tried the L-R control and it only affects PLAYBACK here. Did nothing for recording volume.>>>

Right. It's a post-production tool. Audacity doesn't do anything in real time -- during the recording.

I swear my Windows 2000 machines have a balance control as part of the sound control panels. Are you sure you looked carefully? That does affect the record volume.

<<<why my new laptop only has a mono mic input--no line inputs at all!>>>

I know why. You didn't get a Mac. PC Laptops are configured for Vonage and other voip telephone services where you plug a communications headset straight into the side of the laptop. Macs are set out of the shrink wrap to record stereo audio performances. While the guy with the Mac is recording his next album, the guy with the PC is designing the spreadsheet and calling the agent to arrange the next gig. A deskside PC will do anything, so you very carefully avoided getting the right machine for the job.

Does a black cloud follow you around? Do you live in Manchester where you can't tell?

Koz

[hellosailor]

Koz-
"A deskside PC will do anything," Deskside? Never heard of that, but my desktop which is actually a tower, had even more troubles with sound cards and internal noise problems, which is why I didn't choose to buy a laptop for the job--but have been using one anyway. Mac shamack, I've been using computers since well before the MAC existed. It's a nice high-end proprietary piece of hardware from a nice design group, but I've never found it can do anything that I can't do on the Wintel side, personally or professionally. And I've run triple-platform shops (PC, Mac, Unix) integrating all of them, there's no magic in the MAC. Maybe you don't remember, they spent their first decade+plus doing the same thing Wintels did, at 3x the cost. "Not economicaly feasible for business use" in most corporate settings.

Can't tell you why the balance control works differently. Maybe it has to do with the sound card routing, and how that connects to the sound card driver, or to the OS itself. Audio is different in Vista. I'll have to get around to trying it on my W2K machine to see if it works (t)here, too. But for sure, it doesn't work that way in Vista with an external (slot, not USB) sound card.

[kozikowski]

<<<Deskside? Never heard of that>>>

A lot of us push our towers under our desks during operation. Be sure to put it up on a book or something to keep it form breathing floor dirt.

<<<had even more troubles with sound cards and internal noise problems>>>

I always bought high-end sound cards and never had a lot of troubles. Put them on a PCI away from everything else. I still have two PCs in sound service and they seem to work OK.

<<<Maybe you don't remember, they spent their first decade+plus doing the same thing Wintels did, at 3x the cost. "Not economicaly feasible for business use" in most corporate settings.>>>

I remember. My CompuServe account, still working, was opened in 1985.

That was then. The OS-X revolution pretty much took care of all that. Macs are slowly and sometimes not so slowly spreading through the corporation. The building Systems People, who used to use a Mac only at gunpoint now all own Macs. Some of them have three or four terminals open at the same time plus all their regular tools. Couldn't do that on the early Macs. One third of our video services are on Macs.

Yeah. Here it is. On Win XP, it's buried under Start > Control Panels > Sounds > Advanced Volume Controls. Device volume controls with balance settings.

Win2K isn't buried so deep.

Gotta go. I have to update the virus signatures on my Mac. Oh. Wait....

Koz

[hellosailor]

Koz-
"On Win XP," Doesn't matter, things are different in Vista, and perhaps different for each device as well.

Viruses can be a bitch on the Mac. I spent plenty of time troubleshooting "bomb" iucons and hitting restart and clearing out mutilple startups and yes, even attacks, in the early Mac days. The machines never impressed me.

Of course, if you have any kind of recent Mac you are just running UNIX with a Mac Gui on Intel hardware. It ain't a Mac anymore, is it?<VBG>

Mac: The computer for folks who are confused by having more than one button on their mouse.

[kozikowski]

<<<It ain't a Mac anymore, is it?<VBG>>>>

Or it finally got to be a real Mac.

The volume panels in Vista do not feature balance controls over each main slider?

Koz

[hellosailor]

"The volume panels in Vista do not feature balance controls over each main slider?" Not here. But that may be part of a whole other issue, there are persistent rumors that the RIAA has somehow forced some manufacturers into disabling stereo mix functions. NO idea where the true problem is, just that there are no (NO) balance controls to be found here, except Audacity's, which only works on playback.