Taper Help

[\/\/illy]

Hi! I'm looking for some advice as a taper. What's the easiest way for me to convert a stereo recording that only contains sound in one channel (as I get from most soundboard recordings) to having a copy of the same sound in the "blank" channel?

[bradm]

If you're talking about doing this after the fact (as opposed to patching a single soundboard source to both channels during a show), you can use Audacity to do what you want. Once you get it downloaded and installed (it's free), here's what to do (assuming you're starting with a WAV file):

Start up Audacity, and open up the WAV file you want to mess with (i.e., click on the "File" menu, then the "Open..." item, then navigate to where the file lives, and open it up). You should see a pair of waveforms, with a block on the left side with info on the file (e.g., its name, "Stereo, 44100Hz", etc.). At the top of the block, right beside the file name is a downward-pointing arrow; this is a menu, so click on it. One of the items in the menu is "Split Stereo Track"; click on this item. After you do, you should see two separate individual waveforms, each with its own block of info to the left. In the block for the empty channel, click on the little "x" in the top-left corner to get rid of the waveform.

In the "Project" menu in Audacity, click on the "New Audio Track" menu item. This should bring up a new, blank, waveform. Click somewhere on the other waveform (the one you want to have in both channels), and then press "Ctrl-A" (i.e., hold down the "Ctrl" key while you press the "a" key; this is a shortcut for "select all"). Then press "Ctrl-C" to copy the channel to the clipboard. Click somewhere in the waveform part of the other (blank) channel, and then press "Ctrl-V" to paste the original channel in. You're almost done.

In the top (original) waveform block on the left, click on that little menu to the right of the file name. There's a menu item labelled "Make Stereo Track" (it's right above "Split Stereo Track"); click on it. You should now have almost what you started with, except both of the waveforms will be the same (as opposed to one of them being empty). Then go to the "File" menu and use the "Export WAV..." menu item to save it all to whatever file you want.

Aloha,

Brad

[phishtaper]

yeah, its a simple process in most sound programs. "copy" one channel onto the other.

or, just play it in mono, hehe

[Blane]

with Adobe Audition (don't know about other softs) you can also simulate "space" between the channels so that it sounds less like 2-channel mono. Worth playing around anyway.

[\/\/illy]

Thnaks bradm. That's awesome advice. I've been doing it with Cubase and probably not the easiest way. It takes me way to long to do something so simple. Much thanks!

I'm listening to the Gillies/Filipowitsch show from Pepper Jack's in Hamilton on December 28th. Nice show.

[\/\/illy]

It would have been awesome if I could have got the guitars seperated into different channels. Ah, living the dream.

[bradm]

Thnaks bradm. That's awesome advice.

No problem. I remember asking the same question on http://www.taperssection.com (which is well worth joining) and getting sent step-by-step instructions. You should also make sure you back things up (e.g., don't export from Audacity on top of the file you started with, use a different file name or put it in a different folder) until you're absolutely sure everything is the way you want it.

Aloha,

Brad

[\/\/illy]

It worked like a charm! I'm onto the recording of the Fatties from Touche on December 27th. Those boys were on fire! What else is new.

[bradm]

It worked like a charm!

:thumbup:

I'm onto the recording of the Fatties from Touche on December 27th.

Are you planning on uploading the Fatties recording? (When I do the channel-copying thing in Audacity, either on an entire recording or on selected tracks or track segments, I usually include a note about what I did in the info/text file I create for the recording.)

Aloha,

Brad