**SOLVED** Blue Yeti - Not Recording Both Channels

Hello. I know this subject has been mentioned numerous times, but I can not find a straight answer to save my life. I have Blue Yeti mic, and I am trying to use it’s stereo setting in Audacity so my wife can record higher quality ASMR videos. However, I can’t get audacity to record the right side of my mic. I can hear everything perfectly in my headphones, so I know the mic is working properly. When monitoring my mic in audacity, you can see that it is picking up the left side much better than the right. But, again, in my headphones plugged into my mic, I can hear both sides very clearaly. I have tried setting audacity to record in stereo and mono, but both end up sounding the same. I have searched for hours online and can’t find out what’s up. I also have my own blue yeti, and it is doing the same. I have tried two different USB cables just in case. I have uninstalled and reinstalled both the mic and audacity. I have messed with settings for hours. I am usually one that can figure things out with enough time, but this one seems to be getting the best of me. Any suggestions?

Both Audacity and Windows need to be set to stereo. There are some instructions [u]here[/u]. (And of course the Yeti should be set to stereo.)

Yep. Went through all that last night. I did it again this morning just to be sure. Still doing the same thing. I even tried recording in mono in audacity, since the yeti is in stereo. Same results. And again, with two different yetis. I attached a picture of the recording. The wavelengths show my voice recording levels for the left, middle, then right. You can see how its recording lower on the right side. And when playing back, you can tell its just the left side picking up the sound.
20210106_093553.jpg

You can see how its recording lower on the right side.

The waveforms look identical to me…

I wouldn’t expect them to be exactly identical. There will be variations in the analog electronics and in room acoustics. And if left & right are identical there’s no actual “stereo”.

There’s also no point in recording a single voice/instrument in stereo. If you have one person on the left and another person on the right, and maybe someone in the center, that’s stereo. and of course you won’t get “perfect stereo” because both mic elements will pick-up some sound from all directions.




…BTW - You’re also [u]clipping[/u]. You shouldn’t be hitting 1.0 ( 0dB or 100%) while recording. You can turn-down the recording volume knob on the Yeti and then Amplify or Normalize after recording if you wish. There’s no problem with low digital levels but if you record too “hot”, clipping is distortion.

Its hard for me to explain exactly whats happening, but ill try. When I am not recording, and just listening to my voice through the headphones plugged into the yeti, it is crystal clear. When I speak on the left, I hear it more in the left ear and same for middle and right. My wife is wanting to replicate as close to binaural as she can for ASMR recording. However, when I record, its clearly not in stereo when playing back. When I record my voice on the right side, its very muffled. Also, it still sounds like a mono recording when playing back. Every other ASMR artist literally says they plug up and are ready to go. But this problem is happening on two different computers with two different mics.

Is there a possibility that the USB wire you are using to connect the mic is damaged?

Why else there would be a difference between what you hear in your headphones when monitoring and what you hear after recording?

Is there a possibility that the USB wire you are using to connect the mic is damaged?

The left & right channels are combined into one digital data-stream so it can’t be the cable. And he tried 2 cables and 2 mics.

Why else there would be a difference between what you hear in your headphones when monitoring and what you hear after recording?

The Yeti has direct-hardware monitoring so the (monitoring) signal isn’t going through the computer.

Now you see where my confusion is. I have tried multiple cables, two different mics, and two different computers. And I have heard no one having this trouble.

Stereo.png

Yep. Thats what my settings are on.

I have. You are not the only one. For additional thoughts, check out the following links:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Twitch/comments/fox2r8/blue_yeti_microphone_only_records_left_channel/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Twitch/comments/42rihj/blue_yeti_using_only_one_channel/

Also, check your project rate. It seems that the Blue Yeti can operate at only 48000. So check your Windows and Audacity settings.

What does Blue Yeti have to say?

I hope this helps. :smiley:

So. Update. I finally had a day off to mess with this some more. So, I was able to test all this stuff on my desk top computer that was built from the ground up. It was gifted to me, so I’m not sure on exact specs. However, I did a test recording in Audacity, and I am able to hear sound on the left and right, as it should be. When monitoring my levels in audacity, you can see it picking up sound more depending on what side of the mic you are on. . This is what I’m trying to achieve on my wife’s new laptop. When monitoring in Audacity on the laptop, the bars are moving together on the left and right. I am not really super computer savvy, so I’m wondering. Could this be something to do with the internals of the computer itself? The laptop and the desk top have the exact same settings in the audio control panel and audacity. I have to get this working on the computer!

Also, here’s some shots of the two different computers I have. Forst one is the laptop, where it won’t record in stereo. Second is the desktop that is recording sounds on the left and right correctly.
20210108_164535.jpg
20210108_164522.jpg

Please post the “Audio Device Info” for both machines.
(See: https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/help_menu_diagnostics.html)
Differences between the two may give us some clue as to what the problem is.

Attached are the two device info sheets from my desktop and laptop. I must admit, this is over my head. So I’m not sure what I’m looking at. But again, the desktop records both left and right channels independently and correctly. The laptop records only the left channel on both channels.
deviceinfo desktop.txt (13.4 KB)
deviceinfo laptop.txt (7.71 KB)

One of those other postings insists there’s no such thing as a stereo microphone. That’s when I stopped reading.

What else do you have running? Games, Chat, Skype, Zoom? I’ll bet serious chocolate Zoom will not allow the system to process voice in stereo.

Save your work, close all the apps and programs and Shift+Shutdown. Wait for it to completely finish, and Start. Not regular Shutdown and not Restart.

Start the machine and do not let anything else start. Launch Audacity and see if the Yeti starts working. It’s valuable if the symptoms change even if the problem doesn’t go away. Keep good notes.

Koz

The “Blue” website says that the Yeti is a 3 capsule mic that may be switched for cardiod, omnidirectional or stereo:

@SmashterLink
I assume that you are testing one Yeti mic on two computers, not two Yeti mics?
I assume that you have ruled out the possibility of there being a problem with the “multiple pattern selection switch”?


The Audio Device Info in both cases, shows that Audacity sees the microphone as a 2 channel device, and the mic is selected as the recording device.

One thing that is weird on your laptop setup is that your recording device is set to
MME Yeti microphone”
and your playback device is set to:
WASAPI Speakers (Realtek(R) Audio)”

I’m surprised that is possible.

Try this:

  1. Plug your headphones into the Yeti.
  2. Connect the Yeti to the laptop
  3. Launch Audacity
  4. Ensure that Audacity Device Toolbar is set to:
  • host: MME
    • Recording device: Microphone (Yeti Stereo Microphone)
    • Channels: 2 (Stereo) recording channels
    • Playback device: Speakers (Yeti Stereo Microphone)
  1. Get the “Audio Device Info”.
    Near the bottom of the info it should say:
==============================
Selected recording device: 1 - Microphone (Yeti Stereo Microph
Selected playback device: 5 - Speakers (Yeti Stereo Microphon
Supported Rates:
    48000
==============================
  1. If the Audio Device Info is as above, make a test recording.
    If you are unable to set the devices as above, describe what happens.

And just to cover it. Which Yeti? They’re up to four. “Classic, Legacy” Yeti, Yeti Pro, Yeti X, and Yeti Nano.

Does yours have a volume control and pattern control on the rear? This one is shown in the Stereo position.

Screen Shot 2021-01-10 at 6.30.37 AM.png
Koz

Does the laptop have Zoom, Skype, Chat, etc? That’s important. Zoom likes to take over sound channels and not tell you.

Koz

Ok. Gonna try and answer all these questions.

I have nothing else running. This computer is basically brand new, out of the box. My wife just got it on Christmas. To my knowledge, Zoom isn’t even installed on here. I’ll try the shutdown procedure you talked about and see what that does.

Yes. I do have two Yeti mics, and have tested both mics on both computers. For the purposes of trying to figure out what’s going on, I have been sticking to one. Audacity does recognize it as a two channel mic. But the problem is, the recording itself. I may post a sound clip of what it sounds like.
Also, my playback device is usually selected as “Speakers (Yeti Stereo Mic)”. When I took the pictures and ran the device info, I just didn’t have them plugged in. Like I said before, when I have the headphones plugged in, you can tell the mic is functioning correctly in the left and right because of the onboard monitoring the mic provides. There just seems to be some breakdown from mic to computer. I’ll plug it all up and run the device info again, just to see.

I have the basic Blue Yeti. My mic looks just like the one pictured and yes, it’s in the stereo position.

Again, to my knowledge, it doesn’t. At least I haven’t installed any of those. But I will double check.

Thanks so much again for all the digging. I really appreciate this. I also have a dialogue going with Dell to see if it’s something on the computer end as well.