*SOLVED* Audacity records left channel as dual channel mono

[aparofanatic]

I am about to pull my hair out over this one. I searched the forum and found one issue like mine, but it was for Vista...so I am beginning this new thread.

I am using Windows XP Pro with SP3, and Audacity 1.2.6. When I record a stereo track, it only records from the left channel and in both the wav window and the led indicators it shows both the left and right channel being recorded, but you can clearly see it is the left channel being duplicated into the right. When you play it back, sure enough it is just the audio from the left channel but it is playing out of both the left and the right. I have already checked and tried several things:

* Under edit and preferences, the correct devices are selected and channels is set to 2 (stereo)

* I right click my speaker in the taskbar and select adjust audio properties, speaker volumes left and right are even, sound playback and recording devices are selected correctly

* Under volume control, preferences, recording, stereo mix is selected and the balance is set to center

* In Audacity, stereo mix is selected next to the mic volume slider

* I uninstalled and reinstalled this version of Audacity

* I uninstalled this version and installed a previous version

* I uninstalled previous version and installed the new 1.3.? beta version

* I uninstalled beta version and reinstalled 1.2.6

NOTHING.

Everytime I reinstall, I check every setting described above.

NOTHING.

I STILL GET A DUAL MONO TRACK.

HELP!!

[steve]

What are you recording from? Microphone? CD player? Cassette deck?

[aparofanatic]

Internal audio from the computer. Streaming audio from the internet, iTunes, whatever I try to use as a source turns out the same way. When I listen as it is recording, I can hear it in full stereo.

[steve]

That seems very strange.
Try playing this file, either in your browser, or your media player, and recording in Audacity.
It is a test stereo file - not pretty to listen to, but very clearly stereo:
http://easyspacepro.com/audacity/stereo.mp3

If that comes out as left channel twice, it will be extremely obvious, and would lead me to think that it may be a sound-card driver issue.

I presume that your sound card has stereo mini-jack sockets. You could try getting a (shielded) stereo mini-jack lead, and connecting the "line out" of the sound card to the "line in" and then recording from the "line in".

[aparofanatic]

I had already ran a track like what you posted (the beginning of Pink Floyd's Money), but went ahead and tried your audio anyway just to make sure. Same result.

I understand believing that it may be a sound card issue, but that still leaves me wondering why I can listen to the source and hear it in full stereo as it plays...it would seem that everything I listen to on the computer would have the same result as Audacity if it were a hardware issue. But I could be wrong.

I may consider trying the line out/line in cable. I don't have it with me so that would be an experiment for another day.

Thanks for all your help.

[aparofanatic]

While thinking on your hardware theory, I decided to DISABLE my sound card in the system hardware section of Windows, rebooted, re-enabled it, rebooted again, and BAM!! I HAVE STEREO!!

Thanks again SO MUCH for your help...your comment was the catalyst for the solution!