Stereo MP3 tracks load as mono

[Father Brian]

I have been ripping stereo LPs with Audacity using a USB turntable as input for about 6 months with excellent results. A track of an LP I did a few months ago needed redoing because of a groove jump. When I opened the file in Audacity, it showed as 1-channel mono, though the file information from Windows Explorer says it's 2-channel stereo. All the other tracks from the same session also opened in mono.

Last night I redid the first side of the LP, splitting the tracks, saving them and reopening them as 2-channel stereo. I thought this had solved the problem. This morning, those same tracks are opening as 1-channel mono. Audacity Preferences Audio I/O Recording Channels setting is 2 (Stereo). Can anyone help?

[steve]

This morning, those same tracks are opening as 1-channel mono. Audacity Preferences Audio I/O Recording Channels setting is 2 (Stereo).

Well that's just blown out my first idea

Are you able to upload one of the offending tracks somewhere so we can see if it's anything to do with the file?

[Father Brian]

Thanks Steve, here's one:

http://www.brentwoodit.plus.com/music/0 ... 20Well.mp3

[alatham]

That file opens as a stereo track here:

aud track.JPG (139.54 KiB) Viewed 1097 times

[Father Brian]

Thanks for that, alatham, this is what I see:



I also see a mono track when I open with Audacity v1.3.4. It seems that everything in that folder opens as mono, even though the file Properties say 2-track stereo. As a control, I can open tracks from other folders as stereo.

They were originally ripped with v1.2.4 and I updated to v1.2.6, hoping that might have solved it. Oh well...

[Father Brian]

I'm signing off for the night so I'll respond to any posts tomorrow, thanks to all.

[Father Brian]

Because others can open my file as stereo (and when all else fails), I uninstalled and reinstalled v1.2.6. I reprocessed the raw recording and split it into tracks. What did I get? Stereo!!!

Many thanks to those who responded or considered the issue, which should be considered closed.

[Father Brian]

Grovelling apology time. I traced the problem to a corrupt artwork image attached to the files. I detached the image and Audacity (both versions) opens the files as stereo, reattached it and they're back to mono.