Mono to Stereo?

[FretFire]

Last night I layed down some guitar tracks, but after I mixed the song I noticed I hadn't plugged in the right output from my POD into my sound card (careless I know, but I was just doodling). I was wondering if there is a way to copy the wave from the left channel and place it in the right, to get a stereo sound of the same wave. Any help is appreciated.

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

You should be able to copy the one side over to the other (Sound Forge, for example has that funcationality), but of course, that won't result in a stereo signal. (the same sound in 2 channels is not "stereo" - more like "louder mono")

 

[chrisharris]

or you can just go under the edit function, then "convert" and choose stereo...but like BB said, it'll LOOK like stereo, but whenever you have the exact same thing in the left channel as is in the right, you're not getting much stereo, lol.

 

[Hoodoo]

I've had a similar question regarding the mono-stereo file issue. Does having a stereo file (say, a guitar) in one track impact CPU resources vs. having a mono signal?

I usually record my gtr into Audition as a stereo signal, but then mixdown/convert to mono. Just wondering if I'm saving anything with this extra step...

 

[chrisharris]

Hey Hoodoo...well, you're saving hard drive space when you convert a track to mono, but I honestly don't know about CPU resources. I mean, common sense tells me that if the computer is having to read 2x as much information, it would be more CPU intensive, but I have nothing to base that on.

But here's a question. If you're just converting them to mono anyway, why not just record in mono to begin with? I mean, I know some stuff is cooler when recorded in stereo (acoustic guitars, for example), but if you're just converting it to mono anyway, then it seems like an extra, unnecessary step.

 

[Hoodoo]

I usually convert to mono if I don't have any stereo effects applied (chorus, etc). I like to default my recording to stereo for consistency sake, so that I won't lose stereo effects accidently by recording-in as mono.

More of a process/memory thing for me, as there's enough going on in my life (screaming kids, wife, etc) that I don't want to have "yet another thing" I have to remember... ("Man, great take with that stereo chorus effect... oh $h**, forget to reset to stereo...)

What was I talking about again?