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.
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?
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” ?
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.
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?
I am avoiding answering the posts for right now as there is good conversation happening, and I am to tired to think at the moment, however I do want to address you last question. What you are seeing when you see the first words of your post repeated is a shortcoming of using Drupal for a forum system, where every post(And comment, and forum post) has a Title, as well as content, and what you are seeing is a title being automatically applied to the post that is equivalent to the first several words of your post.
Eventually I hope that a better system can be used for this, but for right now Drupal is working well in other ways, just forums are not necessarily the best part of it:)
I never suggested re-recording anything.
Routing two tracks through a stereo bus is a few seconds work: create a stereo bus, then change the output settings of your two chosen tracks to connect to the inputs of you new bus. If you have Ardour configured for sensible routing (the default) the bus will already have its outputs routed to master.
Now when you hit the “play” button, your audio will go through the two mono tracks and then through the stereo bus. You can insert plugins into the mono tracks, or stereo plugins to the stereo bus, or both. In that setup, you haven’t done any exporting and re-importing.
In your original post, you were talking about regions. If you need to create a stereo region (perhaps so you can do edits, cross fades, gain automation on the two channels in parallel), only then do you need the export/reimport technique. As Paul says, it’s much faster than realtime play/record, and if you export with no processing to a file in 32 bit float .WAV format at the same sample rate (all of which is what you need anyway) it’s very quick indeed because it’s a simple copy.
It’s pointless to compare Ardour with Audacity. Ardour can do thousands of things Audacity can’t, and all of Ardour’s processing and editing is non destructive. That’s good, but it imposes limits on the things you are allowed to do.
I can see that it would in theory be possible to prove UI tools to combine an arbitrary number of single channels to a multichannel track, (or even a special case for 2 x mono -> stereo), but it would be complicated to use, a lot of code to write and very few people would need it. You say you’re a new Ardour user and coming from Audacity: I suspect that you are missing something simple (I’m not sure what) that’s driving you to the incorrect conclusion that you need that feature.
I think I’m going to experiment a bit and do some stuff before saying anything else on this thread (Anahata do you have any tutorial recommendations that will make me do and understand what you have suggested?) but please someone tell me how to keep updated on threads without having to check them manually. Thanks
I find the “recent posts” link at the top of the page useful. You have to visit the site first, though - no email notifications.
Bookmark http://community.ardour.org/ - that’s the closest you can get, as far as I know.
Maybe this is an additional remedy:
Calf PlugIn Suite includes “Calf Mono Input”. The description says, “The Mono Input is a utility for splitting a mono signal into two channels. It is necessary for using the stereo processors of Calf on mono channels in programs like Ardour. Additionally it has some features to manipulate basic attributes of the audio stream like phase or delay of channels.”
Putting a stereo plugin in a mono track will do that split anyway*, but that’s not the same as getting two mono channels to behave as L and R of a stereo track.
Eyewright: Can you describe what is actually recorded on the two mono channels, and why you want them combined into a stereo channel? What you are describing is unusual, so maybe you don’t actually need to do what you are asking. Did you actually record the L and R channels of a stereo source onto two mono tracks? That is the only case I can think of where you would need to do what you are asking.