Cannot change preferences to stereo recording

[spinnerj]

I have searched the forums and can't find an answer for this. I'm running Audacity 1.3.12 and Mac OS X 10.5.8. I go to System Preferences and choose my recording device, which is MXL Studio 1 USB. Then I open Audacity and go to preferences to select my USB. But it will not allow me to choose stereo recording. Only mono. Help! Thank you.

[billw58]

I go to System Preferences and choose my recording device, which is MXL Studio 1 USB. Then I open Audacity and go to preferences to select my USB. But it will not allow me to choose stereo recording. Only mono.

That would be because the XML Studio 1 USB is a mono USB microphone. Why do you want to record a mono microphone in stereo?

-- Bill

[spinnerj]

Well, that is stupid of me. Thanks.

[billw58]

Well, that is stupid of me. Thanks.

Not at all. Many people believe they need to record their microphone (narration) in stereo in order to mix with a stereo music track. That, of course, is not the case since Audacity plays back a mono track to both left and right stereo outputs equally, resulting in the mono track appearing in the "centre" of the stereo image.

However, if your project consists exclusively of mono tracks and you want to export a stereo file, you need to include an empty stereo track in you project - this will force Audacity to export a stereo file. Also, panning any of the mono tracks off centre will also result in the export of a stereo file, without the need to add an empty stereo track.

-- Bill

[spinnerj]

That's excellent advice about the empty stereo track. I really appreciate this. Thank you so much.