Stereo to Mono

[Daz]

Using an external microphone on my camcorder results in the audio track only being laid down on the left channel, which is normal for mono recording and I accept that. However what I want to know is whether it is possible to convert this stereo audio into a mono soundtrack during editing?

No matter how good the quality of audio captured, it sounds awful when you play back a project and the beautiful clean audio only comes out of the left channel. In effect all I want to do is replicate the audio track onto both left and right channels. I am hoping that there is a simple way of converting it within the VS8 package (apply a filter, etc).

If there is no easy way of achieving this in VS8, does anyone know of a useful application that I could export the audio file to, in order to edit it before importing it back in?

Daz

[BrianCee]

little bit confused by your thread title and the first paragraph of your post, surely you don't want to convert stereo to mono - what you want to do is convert mono to stereo effect.

I say stereo effect because of course you cannot create stereo from mono the best you can do is put the same mono track in both sound channels so that it comes out of both speakers equally and simultaneously.

You can correct your problem within UVS8 as follows :-

On completion of editing click on the "Share" tab and then select "Create Video File" - from the drop down choose "Custom" (right at the bottom) - In the dialogue box which then opens choose "Options" (bottom right side) - and then at the top of the new dialogue box click on the "Compression" tab - under that tab at the very top against 'Media Type' choose MPEG-2 - in the same dialogue box move towards the bottom and against 'Audio Type' select "Joint Stereo". - Click OK - in the 'Create Video File' dialogue window give your video file a name and click 'Save' and a file will be created which should have sound on both stereo channels - use this file to create your DVD.

[Daz]

Brian,

thanks for the advice.

I would prefer to have some way of converting just the audio track of choice and not the whole project. The reason I ask is that both my 'tie-clip' microphone and radio microphone are both mono mics, but I normally only use them for interviews (tie-clip) or extremely long shots (radio mic). For the rest of my projects I prefer to have the stereo sound produced by the camcorder mic for the normal soundtrack.

If VS8 can't handle that task, are there any other applications or tools that could do it? Or does anyone know of a hardware solution that would allow me to record the mono output of the mic onto both audio tracks (some sort of adaptor that takes the mic jack and feeds it to both poles of the mic input socket on the camcorder)? Perhaps I should look for new stereo mics instead, but that seems a bit extreme!!

Daz

[jwarner]

One of the many audio editors available for download will do this.

I use Ace of Wave which is available for a free trial at:

http://www.polyhedric.com/software/ace/

I helped a friend clean up an old mono vinyl recording of the Lone Ranger radio program using this program. It allowed me to put the mono track on both stereo channels and filter out most of the noise. The result (which I burned to CD) was very much improved over the original.

The demo version is limited to 2 function groups per use but will allow as many uses as you want (I'm over 100 uses now).

[maddrummer3301]

Daz,

Simply use a splitter available at any electronics store to split the
signal from mono to stereo.

CoolEdit Pro is a very simple program.
You can import the mono file, copy the whole file then
paste it into the left and right tracks of a new file.
CoolEdit Pro can work with many files at the same time.

Adobe Audition 1.5 is also nice. CoolEdit is much less expensive.

If you do need to create a stereo file from a mono file when creating a
mpeg then simply choose "MONO" as the audio properties. If you choose
"Joint Stereo" it will still only come out the Left channel only because
Joint Stereo is a different transport method. It's still stereo.
Experiment with this and find out.

There is a way in VS to do this.
Split Audio, Goto Share -> Create Sound file ( save the file with the EXACT audio properties except for changing the audio to MONO).
Delete the original audio track and import the new mono track.

Hope this helps,

MD

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi Daz

This question has been asked in the past, I have made a short tutorial.

Check out My User Guides -----Stereo to Mono from the link below.

If you wish to apply it to a small part of your video you will have to cut the section using the scissors.
Drag the section to the library then start a new project, now use the library clip in the new project.

Hope this helps

[BrianCee]

Daz,

if it's a hardware solution you would find easiest then would this solve your problem :-

http://www.keene.co.uk/cgi-bin/codesearch.pl?KA158

..

[shoalhaven]

jwarner--

That program, Ace of Wav, is that strictly for WAV files?

[THoff]

The free Audacity audio editor can also do the conversion, and works with WAV, MP3, and OGG Vorbis audio files.

[jwarner]

Yes, AFAIK, Ace of Wave only handles Wave files...

[Daz]

Briancee,

thanks for the link. That little hardware gizmo is just the sort of thing I was hoping someone would point me to. I reckon that it will be the easiest solution of all, since all I have to do is fit it between the camcorder and the mic, record footage as normal, and then download the audio to VS8, and edit it as normal.

Cheers.

Daz

[EricBuist]

Bottom line, there is no solution from within Corel VideoStudio. Having to switch back and forth between software programs is really tedious and inefficient. If I record some audio from within VideoStudio, I will then have to figure out where on disk it is stored, open the sound editor (Audacity, CoolEdit, etc.), search forever in Documents, ..., ..., .., .., superLongNameImpossibleToRemember.wav, open that, edit, save, reimport in VideoStudio. This is not a one-time process. I need to record several voice overs on top of several videos and just cannot spend my time doing tedious manipulations like this. Splitter cables don't work as this is a condenser microphone using a DIN plug, not a standard jack or minijack. Any chance future version of VideoStudio integrate an option to record in mono? Any other video editing tool I could switch to, OTHER than Premiere from Adobe who is totally unusable for me (too small fonts impossible to enlarge)?

[lata]

Hi Eric

First you do realise that the original post is dated 2004, 12 years old, back in Ulead days.
There have been a few versions since then and indeed have improved.

What version of Video Studio are you using?

Voice overs are saved to your Working Folder allocated in Preferences (F6)
Right click any clip and choose Locate on Computer, unless you are still running Ulead?

The Sound Mixer Attributes tab has the option to Duplicate Audio Channels, effectively creating Stereo from a single channel.
Does that help?

[pepegota]

Very simple with Audacity: Tracks/stero track to Mono/ and and your done.

[EricBuist]

Thanks. The "duplicate audio channel" option worked.