Audacity Forum

Hi there,
I've done a bit of searching in FAQ's and found very nearly what I'm looking for but wondered if you could just give me a bit more detail please.

I want to record a podcast with 2 people. I have two hand held mics (Rode procasters) running into a Behringer Xenyx Q1002 USB mixer with 2 sets of headphones running into a headphone preamp then into the mixer. USB mixer plugged into laptop running windows 7. I understand from your forum that to record the voices on to 2 independent tracks I have to pan one mic to the left and one to the right. I then need to "Split the stereo pair to two mono channels to get the voices on independent tracks". This is where I get lost. Can you tell me what settings my computer and audacity need to be set up with to do this? I've just had a go but the recording is coming out the same on each track.
Thankyou!

This is where I get lost.

Actually, you missed a couple of steps before then.

When you did your microphone test, did you have independent control of the mixer's flashing light sound meters? That is, you could talk or scratch one microphone and only the Left sound meter worked?

While you had Audacity recording the performance, did the two Audacity sound meters appear to be completely independent? That is, the Left lights on the mixer more or less matched the Left Audacity sound meter? That's important because everything after this depends on your answer.

Koz

Hi, many thanks for your reply.
Yes I do have independent control of the mixer's light sound meter but no, the Audacity sound meters don't appear to be independent. When one mic is being used both left and right are responding.
Thanks!
Chris

Hi, sorry I just realised that I probably needed to ask you where I go from here!

So basically in answer to your question:
Yes I do have independent control of the mixer's light sound meter but no, the Audacity sound meters don't appear to be independent. When one mic is being used both left and right are responding. Can you tell me what I need to do please?
Thanks!
Chris

Look in the Recording settings in the Windows Sound Control Panel and ensure that the device is set to record 2 channels (stereo).