I’ve been using Audacity for some time but only as a hobby. Lately I have been striving in studies and research so that I can master it safely.
For example: if I were to perform a job of capturing two stereo audios with a guitar and a voice, for example. After these projects are finished and recorded one on each Audacity track, I would like to perform the following procedure before exporting as MP3: each instrument would sound in an independent pan ie the guitar sound on the left side and the voice on the right side .
I know this is possible in Audacity and sometimes a simple procedure. I would like to see the possibility of you teaching me this procedure.
Try this on a short test first. Make sure you have backup copies of all your original files.
Open both the voice and the instrument.
See the sliders to the left of each track. On one, jam the L/R slider all the way left. On the other jam it to the right.
Even if both of the original performances were mono (one blue wave), Audacity has created a stereo show in the background.
Export WAV or MP3. Audacity mixes everything in your project into one stereo sound file. That should play with the instruments on one side and voice on the other.
If the music or voice were originally stereo (two blue waves) it’s a little harder because you have to mix down to mono first in order to keep all the sounds. Select the stereo track > Tracks > Mix > Mix Stereo down to Mono.
The image you sent me as an example, are the tracks in mono?
I understood your teaching, the ideal would be for both tracks to be in mono, otherwise you would have to transform stereo into mono so that the pans are on each side, is that right?
Yes. You have to mix original stereo tracks down to mono before you do this panning trick. You can do this with full two-channel stereo tracks without the mixing, but all the Left sounds on the track you pushed to the Right will be missing. All the Right sounds on the track you pushed to the Left will be missing.
It depends what is in your original stereo tracks.
If a “stereo” track was created from a mono source, such as one microphone, then both the left and right channels will be identical. In this case there is no need to convert to mono. You can simply use the Pan slider on the stereo track.
If the stereo track was created by using two microphones, so that it is a genuine stereo recording, and you recorded just one thing such as a single vocal or a single guitar, then you can either mix the stereo track down to mono before panning, or just pan the stereo track. Mixing down to mono is better if you want to pan all the way to the left or all the way to the right. If you are only panning a bit to the left or a bit to the right, then better to keep them as stereo tracks.
If the stereo track has completely different audio in the left and right channels, such as guitar in the left and vocal in the right, then you need to “Split Stereo to Mono” (see: Splitting and Joining Stereo Tracks - Audacity Manual) and pan each of the mono tracks.
