Seem to be recording in mono

[rdezell]

I have Audacity 2.0.0 on Windows 7, installed from the .exe installer. When recording from my ION USB TT, I can never see any difference in the wafeform for the L and R tracks, regardless of how much I zoom in. Ditto for recording from a tape (tape player hooked up to the TT). I'm testing this using a commercial LP and a commercial cassette, to be absolutely sure they're stereo. In one case (an LP), I can barely hear the vocals during recording (using software playthrough) (but, on the others, everything seems to be balanced). Perhaps this is two separate problems. Any ideas? Thanks.

[kozikowski]

That appears to be phase cancellation and channel mixing, separate but related problems.

You did say something interesting. I can make a super case for this happening on a turntable. I wired up a turntable once wrong and got this exact problem, but not a cassette tape. You just plugged a player into the "Aux-In" of the turntable or something like that?

Just to cover the bases, can you play this short sound clip and does my voice go the right way at the right times?

http://www.kozco.com/tech/LRMonoPhaset4.wav

Koz

[rdezell]

Yes, your voice was correct in the audio file (at least for left, right, and center; I'm not sure what 'out of phase' is; it sounded different). I forgot to mention that I *do* have Audacity set to '2 (Stereo) input'. And, yes, my tape deck is plugged into the turntable -- it says '1/8" stereo input'.

I've copied many LPs before with no problem -- or maybe I just never noticed before.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Richard

[kozikowski]

The Out Of Phase one is the effect of having one "microphone" wired wrong with respect to the others. It produces weird sound and if you're on headphones, my voice could be coming from behind you. It's intentional damage to illustrate a point.

If you apply the Vocal Removal Tool to that clip, the third segment, Center, will vanish and leave the other three. That's the proof the Vocal Removal is working and you just have a bad song if yours doesn't.

Koz

[rdezell]

How do I go about applying the VR tool to that clip? And what is 'vocal removal'? Sorry to sound so dumb. I'm not an audiophile (my field is IT).

Thanks again!

[steve]

How do I go about applying the VR tool to that clip? And what is 'vocal removal'?

See here: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Vocal_Remover