Can someone help?

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

Went to Google and downloaded Audacity-win-2.1.0
After successful download I did the following:

  1. I clicked on ‘File’, then open, then navigated to an MP3 song and clicked open. The file was loaded…
  2. Next, I clicked on the down arrow on the upper part track where the song name is located and clicked on ‘Split Stereo Track’. The track was split in two parts.
  3. Next, I clicked on a blank spot just below the name of the song (on the bottom track) (note: at this point it appears both the upper and lower tracks are highlighted)
  4. clicked on ‘Effect’ and then clicked on ‘Invert’… (note; the bottom track seems to have changed slightly probably inverted)
  5. Clicked on the down arrow on the lower track and clicked on 'Mono"
  6. Clicked on the down arrow on the upper track and clicked on ‘Mono’

Next, I tried playing the tracks, but there is no sound. but, if I move the volume slider on either the top or bottom track it begins to play, but the vocals are still there. As long as the volume control on the upper and lower track aren’t the same, I can hear the tracks, but making them the same volume stops all sound. Either way, the lyrics aren’t removed. GOT ANY IDEAS WHAT COULD BE WRONG? Here’s some pertinent data:

The audacity version is Audacity-win-2.1.0 and here’s some of my computer data:

OS Name: Microsoft Wikndows 10 Home
Version: 10.0.17134 Build 17134
System Manufacturer: HP
System Model: HP Pavilion Power Desktop 580-0xx
Processor: IntelR) core™ i7-7700 CPU @ 3.60GHz, 3601 Mhz, 4 core
SMBIOS Version: 3.0
Platform Role: Desktop
Installed Physical mem: 16.0 GB
Total Physical mem: 15.9 GB
Available Physical mem: 12.2 GB
Available Virtual mem: 18.3 GB
Page file space: 2.38 GB

2

For a start, do yourself a favour and download the latest version which is 2.3.0 (with 2.3.1 expected for release by January), 2.1. 0 is 3 years old and several releases ago.

You can get 2.3.0 from here: https://www.audacityteam.org/download/windows/


Secondly, it would help if you would tell us what you are trying to achieve.

WC

3

Nothing is wrong : inverting identical tracks creates anti-phase : total destructive-interference , a/k/a silence.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Sound/interf.html#c4

4

That shows that the two channels were identical, so now the inverted track completely cancels out the other track.

We generally think of “mono” as being just one audio channel, but it can also be a 2 channel track where both the left and right channels are identical. The “invert one channel and mix” trick for reducing vocals does not work with mono recordings. As you have discovered, for “2 channel mono” recordings, “invert one channel and mix” cancels out all of the sound. It is not possible for Audacity to remove the vocals from that recording.

5

And you can discover you have a two-track mono show by magnifying the blue waves to see if they’re identical, and the proof positive is split, invert and add. If the show vanishes, it’s two track mono. You can also get an idea from watching the Audacity bouncing sound meter. If left and right bounce exactly together, then it’s two-track mono.

Most of my voice recording work is destined for the video editors who work almost exclusively in stereo, so even though I’m shooting a single person, I generally deliver in “stereo” (two blue waves). It just easier than needing to explain how a single channel sound track is going to appear on both left and right.

Koz