Reaper and Focusrite 8i6 output not in stereo

[JFoshee]

I finally got through my first recording tonight. I noticed that when listening to my guitar or vocals while recording that my output is only coming through one side. I set the "output" (in the options tab) to the 8i6 and listening through the headphones I hear input 1 in one ear (left I think) and input 2 in the other (right I think). After recording and playing back through the headphones it comes from both sides. Any ideas?
Also, after recording. How do I get this on a cd? I finally got it done tonight, but I had to save it in my documents then open iTunes and import it into a playlist by itself then burn the playlist to a cd. Is there no way to do this from the export command under the file tab with Reaper?

 

[Tadpui]

It sounds like you selected a stereo input as your source for this track.

After you insert a new track, take a look at the input that you've selected for that track. There's a little down arrow to click on the track in the track view. In the drop-down menu that appears when you click that down arrow, be sure to select a mono input. Otherwise it treats your individual inputs as pairs of inputs that will be hard-panned L & R.

 

[mjbphotos]

When you are done mixing, you render the master mix to a stereo file (16 bit for burning to CD).

 

[DM60]

Reaper has a feature to render all tracks and burn it to CD. There are many steps involved, but it will do it out of the box. I've tried it a few times, I use(d) the feature to "Master" a group of tracks and render them all in separate files. If you read in the manual, burning to CD, it will step you through it. Takes a little time, but it will create a nice CD for you in one step with everything going through the master bus, and each song having a track.

 

[JFoshee]

I'm pretty sure I had it set to mono but I will double check. Also, I don't remember mine looking like yours when I moved my mouse over Input:Mono. Thanks for the advice on the output to CD. After I posted last night I went back to the Reaper site and downloaded the manual. WOW 400 pages. Thanks again.

 

[JFoshee]

It doesn't seam to matter how I have this set it only comes through one side of the headphones. I'm sure the headphones are ok because when I finish recording and play the track, it plays in both sides. However, I did discover tonight that if I move the headphones to the output jack in the back I get sound from both headphone speakers, but from the headphones jack on the front it only comes from one side.
New question: The Focusrite 8i6 has 2 input on the front and two on the back, not including the MIDI and SPIF. It has 4 outputs on the back, again not including the MIDI and SPIF. I can only hear input 1 if I plug into output 1. I can only hear input 2 if I plug into output 2. Even if I have a input into multiple channels I can only hear the output from the same input channel. Is this normal?

 

[DM60]

Your interface has 4 outputs, each output is a channel. The channels are usually 1/2 3/4 channel 1/3 is the left side, channel 2/4 is the right side. It has 4 in the case you want to route outputs say one to speakers and another to a mixer board, or 2 different set up speakers or ...

 

[ashcat_lt]

The headphones go in the headphone hole in the front! That is the only single hole that will give you true stereo. Plugging into the rear only gives you one channel (left or right) but it will be out of phase between the left and right ears. It sort of works, but as you've seen...

I'm pretty sure the problem is in Focusrite's MixControl software. It can do all kinds of crap that is completely unnecessary and mostly just gets in the way. Poke around in there. If it was me, I'd turn off any direct monitoring of the inputs via MixControl and make sure that only the output from the DAW is going to the main stereo output of the interface. That way you hear only what Reaper is doing. You'll have to enable the input monitoring on your Reaper track, but it should follow the panning of the track then. If your machine is halfway decent you should be able to get low-enough latency through Reaper without any of that fancy crap from Focusrite.