Hello.
I’m new to Ardour and I have just learned how to split a stereo track into two mono tracks (by choosing “make mono regions” and dragging them from the editor list), which is nice.
If I try to do the opposite, e.g. drag two mono regions to a stereo track, when I hit play only the left channel sounds. Everything gets sent to the left channel and nothing to the right.
How do I make it so that the first mono region I drag is the left channel and the the second one is the right?
Thank you
The normal way to create a stereo region in the first place is to create a stereo track, then record sound through the two inputs that you assigned to it. Those inputs will be the L and R channels of the stereo region created when you record.
The “Stem export” trick I described above would be to rescue yourself if you had accidentally recorded to two mono tracks, when you really meant use a stereo track, and is only to save you the trouble of a retake.
There are no email notifications. Some people use RSS, and old mid 2000’s technology that had nothing wrong with it except that nobody figured out how to monetize it. This site has an RSS feed.
You cannot take two mono regions and automagically combine them via dragging or similar operations to a stereo track.
If you want to work with stereo, then as anahata noted, use a stereo track, not two tracks.
Paul, that’s what I’m doing. I’m trying to use a stereo track instead of two mono tracks panned hard left and right.
By the way, how do you enable email notifications for replies on this forum? I haven’t got any since this thread started, and I created it myself
Paul, what can’t I do?
“Would it help if you routed the two mono tracks to a stereo bus?”
Doesn’t it require you to record first?
“What you still won’t be able to do is editing of the two tracks as a stereo region.”
ok, how do you edit two tracks that will end up being the left and right channels of a stereo track at the same time without having to wait some potentially very long time first? e.g. stereo reverb, chorus
Are stereo tracks only meant to be used after recording two channels together?
Thank you
PD: if some words or sentences appear randomly repeated in this message I don’t know what happened
Would it help if you routed the two mono tracks to a stereo bus? you should be able to do that, and then apply any fader controls and processing in stereo to the bus instead of the tracks.
What you still won’t be able to do is editing of the two tracks as a stereo region. You could make a stem export of the two tracks panned hard left and right to a new stereo .WAV file, then import that. Then I think you’d have what you wanted, and you’ll have learned a lot, including to make sure you create a stereo track in the first place if that’s what you needed 
You can’t do that.
Saying that you have to rerecord two mono tracks to make a stereo track sounds to me like saying that you have to rerecord a stereo track with its L and R channels mapped to two mono tracks in order to extract L and R: it’s perfectly logical if both of these tasks could or couldn’t be done, but it doesn’t make sense that you can do one and not the other, since each one is simply the opposite of the other.
And since in Ardour you can unlink L and R by extracting them, I cannot understand how taking two extraxted tracks and linking them to be L and R of a new stereo track is not possible.
anahata, I’m wondering how you yourself apply and tweak stereo effects. If you are applying stereo effects to different pairs of similar mono tracks/takes to see which sounds best, do you rerecord/export each possible pair before beginning?
paul, I previewed this site’s rss feed but it only shows news, not forum threads
Thank you
it's perfectly logical if both of these tasks could or couldn't be done, but it doesn't make sense that you can do one and not the other, since each one is simply the opposite of the other.
That is just it, they are not opposites of each other. One is a mapping N>1 process, meaning you have N number of channels being mapped to one mono channel each. The other is a M>N where you might have an arbitrary number of channels you are trying to drag on a track with an arbitrary number of channels that may or may not match the number of regions you are dragging onto it. Take for example when you try to drag 2 channels on a 5 or 6 channel track, or even 6 channels onto a 6 channel track. How do you identify which channel goes to which output for instance?
I am not saying that it couldn’t be easier to have it arbitrarily pick L and R when two channels are drug onto a stereo track, but it is not really the same as saying it is the opposite.
SeabladeIf you are applying stereo effects to different pairs of similar mono tracks/takes to see which sounds best, do you rerecord/export each possible pair before beginning?
Since I can’t match that description to anything I’d normally do, I can’t answer that question other than by saying I don’t do that.
Are you actually making a stereo recording (as in: pair of mics set up to capture a stereo image, e.g. coincident X/Y or ORTF)? If not, you probably don’t need to apply effects identically to any pair of channels. For Eq and compression, you use mono processing to each channel, and/or apply stereo processing to the master mix bus. Reverb is a special case where it’s usual to take a feed from each mono channel to a stereo reverb bus which feeds pure reverb into the mix. If you really need to take a pair of mono channels and apply processing (i.e. plugins) to them as a stereo pair, you can route them to a stereo bus for that purpose, which is what I suggested right at the top of the thread.
For more help, I think you need to be more specific about exactly what you are recording, and how you are planning to create your stereo mix, because I think there are better approaches to achieve what you want than the methods you are describing.
another way to understand why this is not a case of “two opposite actions”: when you split a stereo (or N-channel) track and create mono regions, the TARGET for the operation is clearly identified (the regions in the stereo track), and the INTENT of the operation is clearly identified (by selecting the action from a menu).
there’s no obvious way to similarly identify the target or intent of a drag operation in which you start with 2 regions and end up with a stereo track.
Seablade, I understand what you mean. There are many cases of M>N, but we’re talking about a specific case: M>2N (I mean stereo, apologies if this is not the way to notate it) and there are only two possibilities. Either L and R or viceversa.
Still, even if I was trying M>5N and it was impossible to guess the order, I should be able to just specify.
Paul, I agree dragging may not be the most clear way but what about selecting? Isn’t there a command that allows me to select two mono tracks and then turn them into a stereo track specifying which one is L and which one R? (sort of like in Audacity)
Anahata, let’s say we were in that situation and we needed to apply some processing to two tracks as a stereo pair. I’m the musician and you’re the recording engineer. I tell you “alright, I’d like some reverb there (or any other effect), on the first 30 minutes or so. Play it back with reverb on and let’s listen”.
Do you reply “ok, but first I have to virtually rerecord those 30 minutes to make a stereo track so that we can apply the effect. Actually I’m going to rerecord the whole 2 hour concert in case you decide to do the same on other parts of it. No, I’m going to rerecord the three concerts to be safe. Come back tomorrow” ?
There is no such command.
You seem to still be missing the point that anahata is making: if you are working with stereo material, then record it to a stereo track. Do not record it to two mono tracks then expect to find some instant command to convert that into a stereo track. It really is that simple. You made a mistake recording to two mono tracks. I am sorry that we don’t have an instant way for you to combine them into a stereo track, but we don’t, and that doesn’t change the fact that you should have started with a stereo track.
Also, as a workaround, you don’t need to wait a long time. Export the mono tracks to a stereo wave file, then reimport it. It will run MUCH faster than realtime.
If you are applying stereo effects to different pairs of similar mono tracks/takes to see which sounds best, do you rerecord/export each possible pair before beginning?
Paul, what would you do in this situation? (you have several recordings out of which two of them will be combined in a stereo track for processing/effects that only work in stereo tracks)
you have several recordings out of which two of them will be combined in a stereo track for processing/effects that only work in stereo tracks
What’s your objection to my suggestion, made twice now, that you route the selected tracks to a stereo bus for the stereo processing? Or if those two tracks are the only contributors to the entire mix, just put your effects in the master bus, which is of course stereo by default.
you have several recordings out of which two of them will be combined in a stereo track for processing/effects that only work in stereo tracks
What’s your objection to my suggestion, made twice now, that you route the selected tracks to a stereo bus for the stereo processing? Or if those two tracks are the only contributors to the entire mix, just put your effects in the master bus, which is of course stereo by default.
anahata’s point is correct. you can also use the export/import workflow as i described, which is more useful if you actually plan to edit.
If you were importing pre-existing mono, you can also ensure that the files are named following ProTools conventions (“foo%L.wav” and “foo%R.wav”) and during importing them you can choose to merge them into a single track. This doesn’t apply directly to the situation you’ve described.
Anahata
What's your objection to my suggestion, made twice now, that you route the selected tracks to a stereo bus for the stereo processing?
I may be ok with exporting and reimporting, but rerecording doesn’t seem practical to me, especially if you have very long clips and a lot of stereo effects to apply.
Please note I’m not disregarding your suggestions. That’s why I asked you what you would do in my last example situation. If you’d told me you’d wait for everything to rerecord/reexport then I can be sure there’s no other way. But maybe you know a quicker way to do it. I really would like you to tell me what you would do in that case.
At this point I nearly completely agree with all of you that you can’t just take two mono tracks and make a stereo track out of them on the fly without any sort of processing, but if none of them has been edited in any way, not even delayed a little bit, what prevents Ardour from just linking them? I mean, in Audacity for example, you can take any two mono tracks and turn them into a new stereo track as long as you leave their faders alone, but if you change volume levels and panning you have to render the tracks to keep the changes.
I see Ardour’s export/reimport as being equivalent to Audacity’s render, but then it seems strange that Ardour always needs to “render” the tracks no matter if they were edited or not.
Paul, you didn’t tell me how to get new forum thread replies via RSS. I’m still having to check this thread manually for new replies.
BTW I keep seeing the first words of my replies repeated in the message previews. This happens in both chrome and firefox. Am I the only one?
Thank you