bug or design flaw or stupid user ?

[whomper]

did my first full cd album for practice
audacity is *great* - intuitive - powerful - stable - good quality - easy to use (needed little help from the manual)

but
i ran into a problem that can't be unique to me

had recorded stereo live using H2 (which should be irrelevant)
dragged file into pc and edited with audacity
fixed levels, split tracks, normalised, all the usual stuff
exported multifile for cd burning
used roxio to burn wav 16bit 44.1 files to cdrom
WORKED LIKE IT SHOULD HAVE!!

but on playback there was a bad pop on one track
no idea how it got there
H2 have a problem ? Audacity random bug?
problem with one of the effects? other ??

drilled down and looked at the stereo tracks again in detail around the time that the pop was heard (about 12 seconds into the cut)
and saw that the *left* track had a strange waveform
that did not fit with surrounding data NOR the right track
for several frames

desperately need a way to edit only L or R track of the stereo pair

converting to mono does not let me unconvert to stereo
as i tried it -- and as i read the manual

Not really practical to record two mono tracks in the field

but if that were done can they be made into to stereo ?
unclear how if that capability exists at all

any suggestions as how to fix a single track of a stereo pair ?

[steve]

but on playback there was a bad pop on one track
no idea how it got there
H2 have a problem ? Audacity random bug?
problem with one of the effects? other ??

It could have been anything. A glitch on the recording, a noise that you did not notice, a bad edit, a data transfer error, a bad bit of memory on the flash card.... would need more information to pin it down. Keep an eye out for it occuring again and see if you can narrow it down. If it happens again, check the original Zoom recording and see if the pop is on the original while it is on the Zoom, if it is on the transferred file, or if it appears during editing.

desperately need a way to edit only L or R track of the stereo pair

Click on the name of the track and you will see a drop down menu.
Select "Split Stereo Track".
Fix the click, then
Click on the name of the top track and select "Make Stereo Track".

[whomper]

but on playback there was a bad pop on one track
no idea how it got there
H2 have a problem ? Audacity random bug?
problem with one of the effects? other ??

It could have been anything. A glitch on the recording, a noise that you did not notice, a bad edit, a data transfer error, a bad bit of memory on the flash card.... would need more information to pin it down. Keep an eye out for it occuring again and see if you can narrow it down. If it happens again, check the original Zoom recording and see if the pop is on the original while it is on the Zoom, if it is on the transferred file, or if it appears during editing.

desperately need a way to edit only L or R track of the stereo pair

Click on the name of the track and you will see a drop down menu.
Select "Split Stereo Track".
Fix the click, then
Click on the name of the top track and select "Make Stereo Track".

but on playback there was a bad pop on one track
no idea how it got there
H2 have a problem ? Audacity random bug?
problem with one of the effects? other ??

It could have been anything. A glitch on the recording, a noise that you did not notice, a bad edit, a data transfer error, a bad bit of memory on the flash card.... would need more information to pin it down. Keep an eye out for it occuring again and see if you can narrow it down. If it happens again, check the original Zoom recording and see if the pop is on the original while it is on the Zoom, if it is on the transferred file, or if it appears during editing.

desperately need a way to edit only L or R track of the stereo pair

Click on the name of the track and you will see a drop down menu.
Select "Split Stereo Track".
Fix the click, then
Click on the name of the top track and select "Make Stereo Track".

I tried splitting stereo track.
I think I got one mono track[going by memory].
just tried it again -- i get one mono track.
which does not solve the problem
and leaves me with the another
eg
did not (still dont) see any way to recombine to stereo.

And again no obvious way to switch between mono tracks if there were two which is an option that is needed -- else let us edit each half of the stereo pair separately.

Since this was a *very* short glitch causing the pop, I just zeroed out that small bit. Did not notice any problems with that approach. And certainly the pop was much worse.

I have the original file.
I will try to see if the glitch was located there.

I have a couple of intermediate working files saved too.
Perhaps I can see where the problem occurred if it was later.

But I either need more education, clearer interface, better manual, or a way to diddle the stereo tracks directly without the mono split in between. It just didnt work the way I thought it would by splitting and I could not find a way to recombine.

[steve]

just tried it again -- i get one mono track.

Which version of Audacity are you using? (Help menu > About Audacity)

When you click on the name of a track, do you see a drop down menu?

screenshot.png (44.52 KiB) Viewed 1474 times

[whomper]

just tried it again -- i get one mono track.

Which version of Audacity are you using? (Help menu > About Audacity)

When you click on the name of a track, do you see a drop down menu?

screenshot.png

1.3.9.beta unicode
xppro sp2

i get one mono track period

if i click on the top of the box at the left ("audio track")
there is a drop down box
i can pick mono, left, right
but there is still only ONE track
by my logic a split of anything should result in two things not one

and if there were two of them somewhere
i do not see any way to put them back together as stereo

instead of this split stuff
it would be far better to allow selection of L or R directly
and edit each separately

this is all unintuitive
and recreating stereo impossible unless you already know something about the internal workings that i do not see anywhere

i would expect split to show me two tracks L & R
allow me to edit separately
and have a command in the same box to recombine them

still seems like it would be easier
and make more sense
to allow choosing both tracks for stereo editing
as well as to pick either L or R for individual tweaking
without any split and recombine steps

seems like extra coding for developers
and extra work for users

[kozikowski]

It's possible this is a problem with 1.3.9, but we can see.

When I load a stereo track into Audacity 1.3, the panel on the left says: Piano2, Stereo, 48000Hz, 16-bit PCM and there are two blue waves on the screen. It's a television track at 48000.

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/Audacity1_playback.jpg

When I select Split Stereo Track, the only thing that happens is a fence opens up between the two blue waves and the left-hand panels (two now) change to Left and Right instead of Stereo. The waves do not move.

Read us your Original left panel and what the new one reads.

The 1.3.x versions before 1.3.11 all had different serious problems that some people experienced, and some didn't. You may be one of the lucky ones.

Koz

[whomper]

It's possible this is a problem with 1.3.9, but we can see.

When I load a stereo track into Audacity 1.3, the panel on the left says: Piano2, Stereo, 48000Hz, 16-bit PCM and there are two blue waves on the screen. It's a television track at 48000.

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/Audacity1_playback.jpg

When I select Split Stereo Track, the only thing that happens is a fence opens up between the two blue waves and the left-hand panels (two now) change to Left and Right instead of Stereo. The waves do not move.

Read us your Original left panel and what the new one reads.

The 1.3.x versions before 1.3.11 all had different serious problems that some people experienced, and some didn't. You may be one of the lucky ones.

Koz

okay

i may be blind as well as stupid
i do now see that with a stereo track
if i pick audio track from the left of the tracks
that it has a split stereo option
and then later a recombine option

BUT ONLY ON THE TOP TRACK
THE OPTIONS ON THE BOTTOM TRACK ARE DIFFERENT

i swear that i saw a split stereo track somewhere else
at the top of the screen

and was clicking on that other one
but now i can't find it

now i see a make mono from stereo but not the split stereo
amongst the drop downs from the top

until i can repeat this lets assume that i misread the one that i thought i was using

mark this one problem solved - idiot user who can't read

while figuring this out i did note an anomaly in recording

when recording "nothing"
it gives two different tracks
starting from different points
they jump up immediately (-40 for top -60 for bottom track)
and then drift down (shape like a capacitor being (dis)charged ?)
[or like a fade out?]
but a different speeds
now maybe the mike is not balanced
but repeating this they both start at very low levels (-80.5)
without the initial jump

the top track seems unbalanced (dc offset?)
which may be causing part of the difference between the tracks

is there some sort of digital filtering going on that could affect the first 1 second of top and 1/2 second of the bottom channel?

i dont see this as a true problem - just an interesting observation
normally i will be recording several seconds of silence before starting a take anyway

[steve]

now i see a make mono from stereo

"Tracks" menu > "Stereo Track to Mono"

This is not the same as "Split Stereo Track" or "Split Stereo to Mono" (which appear in the drop-down menu for the track).

but not the split stereo
amongst the drop downs from the top

Correct - there isn't one.
As this is a function that is applied on a per-track basis it is in the drop-down menu for the track.

(It is arguable whether the "Stereo Track to Mono" should really be in the top menu at all, but it is quite handy, and it is really just a special type of "mix" function, so it is listed next to the "Mix and Render" function.)

when recording "nothing"
it gives two different tracks
starting from different points
they jump up immediately (-40 for top -60 for bottom track)
and then drift down (shape like a capacitor being (dis)charged ?)

That's a sound card fault - it should not really happen - when recording "silence" the recording should start at the centre (zero) line. Your guess about a capacitor may well be correct. Since it settles down to the correct level I guess it's not too important and your working method of leaving a few seconds of silence before the actual recording gets round the issue nicely.

[kozikowski]

In case we never got to tell you, all these tools are under the black down arrow to the left of the track, not at the top of Audacity.

And don't fog the issue with other quality problems. Let's get the basic tools to work first, then we'll deal with your broken sound card.

Koz

[whomper]

In case we never got to tell you, all these tools are under the black down arrow to the left of the track, not at the top of Audacity.

And don't fog the issue with other quality problems. Let's get the basic tools to work first, then we'll deal with your broken sound card.

Koz

not worried about the sound card
just found it an interesting phenomenon
that makes no real difference

as to the other things
i am from the camp that says be consistent
and logical wrt where you can find options/commands

i would prefer a way to choose all tracks that i want to work with at one time
and then pick all track options from tracks at the top

i may want to work with one two or even more tracks
as well as click track label track etc -- at the same time