Stereo to 2 mono WAV files?

[Prokopton]

Hi everyone,

I just joined, have a question, bear with me as I'm not necessarily up to speed on everything Audacity. (I'm not even sure I'm running 1.3.x -- how do you tell? But I think so.)

I just bought a lovely little Tascam DP-004 and want to export to it from Audacity, but it only reads mono WAV files. Can anyone here walk me through how to turn a stereo Audacity project into two exported mono WAV files, one containing the original right side audio, the other one the left?

What I tried so far: split the stereo track and delete one track. Make the remaining track mono and export as WAV. Then go back to the original project and repeat this for the other track.

Should this work? The DP-004 for some reason didn't recognize these tracks. I'm also asking Tascam to see if there's anything I should know, but is there anything else I should try that the experts here can think of? I don't know the ins and outs of Audacity too well, as I say... is it possible that when I'm exporting I'm still somehow going stereo? Do I need to save the split and mono'd tracks as separate projects perhaps, before exporting them?

Many thanks for reading!

[ignatz]

How about this:

1; Open stereo file
2; Split stereo track to mono using inverted triangle menu on left border of Audacity window, just below where the seconds are displayed (0, 15, 30, etc) Be sure to choose stereo to mono here; if you don't, the exported file will have 2 channels, one of them empty.
3; Put cursor in top channel and double click to select just the top channel
4; Edit/copy
5; File/new
6; File/paste; this should show as just one channel with the pasted file in it
7; File/export; this should be just one channel and mono

Go back to original window and put cursor in bottom channel and double click to select just the bottom channel.

Repeat 4 through 7 above.

I just did the above on a sample file. When I reopened the 2 newly created files, each showed as a single channel.

Due to a lack of stereo separation in the sample file, I couldn’t actually tell if I had “succeeded” and I don’t know if it is quicker or yields a different result than what you did. Maybe both yield the same thing?

[Prokopton]

Thanx so much for replying Ignatz -- much quicker than Tascam!

OK what you are saying makes me think perhaps I have 1.2 not 1.3 Audacity -- I don't have a 'split stereo to mono' option on the drop-down ('inverted triangle') menu -- I just have an option that says 'split stereo track'. I've been using that, then going into that menu again on the individual track and clicking 'mono'. After this, the track is labelled 'mono' so it ought to be ok?

The idea of copying and pasting into a new project is a good one but it didn't seem to work, and I think I ended up with the same as I did before... DP-004 certainly didn't read it. Unfortunately I haven't got anything else to export the file to, but I suspect there's no difference between the two methods.

Did you edit your post there? At first I thought you said that the new files had one blank channel and one with audio, but now it says you literally just have one channel? And is this is on an exported WAV or did you just save the mono files as an Audacity project? I can't think of anything I've got to open WAVs with to check visually that they're mono, but when I export the mono-ized files they always take a much shorter time than exporting the stereo ones. (Track is 20 mins long.)

Thanks for your help.

[ignatz]

Thanx so much for replying Ignatz -- much quicker than Tascam!

OK what you are saying makes me think perhaps I have 1.2 not 1.3 Audacity -- I don't have a 'split stereo to mono' option on the drop-down ('inverted triangle') menu -- I just have an option that says 'split stereo track'. I've been using that, then going into that menu again on the individual track and clicking 'mono'. After this, the track is labelled 'mono' so it ought to be ok?

The idea of copying and pasting into a new project is a good one but it didn't seem to work, and I think I ended up with the same as I did before... DP-004 certainly didn't read it. Unfortunately I haven't got anything else to export the file to, but I suspect there's no difference between the two methods.

Did you edit your post there? At first I thought you said that the new files had one blank channel and one with audio, but now it says you literally just have one channel? And is this is on an exported WAV or did you just save the mono files as an Audacity project? I can't think of anything I've got to open WAVs with to check visually that they're mono, but when I export the mono-ized files they always take a much shorter time than exporting the stereo ones. (Track is 20 mins long.)

Thanks for your help.

I use Audacity 1.3.12. You can see what version you have from the Help menu/about Audacity. You can easily upgrade and I don't see why you wouldn't. Recent versions have considerable improvements.

You may be right about earlier versions not having split stereo to mono.

I exported to mp3 for my test, but I would certainly think an export to WAV would give the same result.

I never use "projects". I just exported and saved a file.

Yes I did edit my post. On my first attempt, I chose "split stereo track" and ended up with a stereo file with only one channel containing any signal. I figured Tascam would puke at that, so I tried "split stereo to mono" and found that the result was an actual mono single channel file---which I assume Tascam might enjoy?

But as I said, I have no idea if it actually worked because the file I split has very little stereo separation. My guess would be that it did work.

[Prokopton]

Right, I think we have a way forward then. I know I'm right about the earlier version not having that option, and I think I even found the thread where the 'split to mono thing was first coded on this very forum:

http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=8646

You can easily upgrade and I don't see why you wouldn't.

Heh, so far I never have because I didn't know my version was old. I'm new to Audacity, just found it downloaded by someone else on my machine and it works well for my applications...

Yes I did edit my post. On my first attempt, I chose "split stereo track" and ended up with a stereo file with only one channel containing any signal. I figured Tascam would puke at that, so I tried "split stereo to mono" and found that the result was an actual mono single channel file---which I assume Tascam might enjoy?

Yes I think you are right, though I will need to upgrade to check this. I think it might well work...

Many thanks, when I have results I will post.

[Prokopton]

I upgraded, did precisely what you said, and DP-004 still won't recognize the file.

In a way I'm not surprised because I think that 'split to mono' option I have on 1.3 didn't do anything different from what I was doing before, except with fewer clicks. (Because I manually set the split tracks to mono.)

I really would love more suggestions, but at the same time, this is starting to look like Tascam's problem, rather than Audacity's -- and they aren't getting back to me yet.

A bit mysterious

[Prokopton]

After all this, the problem was just how I saved it to the DP-004!

Sorry to have wasted your time Ignatz, but at least I got a shiny new Audacity for the trouble...