Right channel attenuated 20 db

L

Lee Saxon

Well-known member
Right now I'm working with a single mic recording to both channels.

I'm not very experienced with audio recording, but I breifly owned a DR-100 and noticed that it didn't attenuate the right channel, while the PMD-661 does.

I'm assuming this is intended to serve as a "safety track"? But I'm not sure what to do with it in post. Should I just copy/paste the L channel into the R?
 
The safety track shouldn't be attenuated by -20dB. That's pretty extreme. -6dB is more like it. Anyway...

When you bring your audio into your NLE, and both tracks have the same source, simply use one of the tracks in your sequence. Use the primary track unless it has clipping, at which point you go to the safety track. As for copy and paste... unless you're using a very, very rudimentary editing program (like MovieMaker), you should have complete control over your audio, including pan control. Open the audio clip and pan it to the center. Audio tracks don't operate in left or right channels... that's assigned on a clip-by-clip basis. Copying and pasting to try and "center" the audio is a wasted step that can have adverse effects on the sound, including phase cancellation if the pasted clip happens to be frames, or even sub-frames, out of sync.
 
I'm not talking about separate tracks/files. The PMD-661 records normal levels to the L channel and the same thing down 20dB to the R channel, within one file. There isn't an option to change the attenuation (say to -6 as you mentioned).

Should I just record single-channel mono and pan it to the center?
 
Lee Saxon said:
I'm not talking about separate tracks/files. The PMD-661 records normal levels to the L channel and the same thing down 20dB to the R channel, within one file. There isn't an option to change the attenuation (say to -6 as you mentioned).

Should I just record single-channel mono and pan it to the center?
Click to expand...

What I'm talking about is making separate audio files out of what's recorded. What software do you use? You should be able to split that "stereo" file within your NLE or DAW, ditch one channel, and pan the other to the center.
 
Marantz does have the "safety" feature and yes it is a -20 on one channel. You should not combine them. Use the full volume track unless you have a clip. If your regular track clips at some point then you can use the -20dB track. You should split the tracks in to two mono tracks, they just show up as stereo because the Marantz is recording them as interleaved files. All DAW's and NLE's that I know have the ability to split interleaved files in to dual mono.
 
Soundbooth CS5. Once I knew what it was I was supposed to be doing, I was able to figure out how to do it pretty easily. Program makes a lot of sense to an experienced Photoshop user (unlike PP and AE)
 
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