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Help! Changing Mono wav files to sound stereo

Posted: Sun Feb 27, 2005 8:29 pm
by nightw1ng
Hello,

Is there a way to turn a single channel (mono) wav file to sound stereo?

Are there any effects that can be used to make a mono file stereo?

I understand that it is not true stereo but maybe there is a plugin that will add an effect to both channels.

Thank you for the help. I have been looking everywhere to be able to learn how to do this but no luck so far.

Re: Help! Changing Mono wav files to sound stereo

Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2005 8:56 pm
by GoldWave Inc.
Use the File | Save As command to save a mono file as stereo, then update the sound. To create a pseudo-stereo effect use the Edit | Channel menu to select a single channel, then use the Equalizer filter effect to slightly alter each of the bands (+/- 1.0 dB) for that channel.

Chris

Posted: Mon Feb 28, 2005 10:47 pm
by nightw1ng
Thank you very much for the reply. I will try it out.

Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2005 10:33 am
by nightw1ng
Hello Chris,

Just wanted to say thank you. It worked!

Now is there is an effect that can make a voice sound like it's coming from a radio communication.

For example a communication between a tower and a plane?

Posted: Thu Mar 03, 2005 8:03 pm
by GoldWave Inc.
Try the "Thin" preset under the Equalizer filter effect or experiment with the Bandpass/stop filter effect and the Mechanize effect.

Chris

Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2005 1:54 am
by jdeligiannis
I too have a problem with changing a Mono to a Stereo sound.

I have an a cappella to a song, and I have the instrumental to it too. The a cappella was saved as a Mono file, and it used to be Stereo. I know it is impossible to change it back to the way it was, but I also know it can be changed to another form of Stereo. However, changing the volume or echo to different degrees on the two channels doesn't really cut it. Does anyone know any better methods?

Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 4:35 am
by Danilo Perusina
Hello!
Tricky issue in my opinion, as recording in stereo is in itself not so easy! But if you know how the different stereo techniques work, you´ll have an idea about what effects you can try. In addition to the suggestion above, try this:
1. copy the mono-file to a new stereo-file
2. apply a modest amount of eq to each band (1dB is enough)
3. you can also add some reverb if you wish
4. go to "channel mix": in the drop-down menu for one of the channels, select "invert.."
5. now, copy the original mono-file again, and mix it into the stereo-file. By selecting different volume-levels in the "mix" dialouge box, you´ll be able to get a wider or narrower stereo-image.

This is a way to simulate a stereo-technique which is called "M/S". To give a brief description, this is how it´s done: two microphones are placed together, but pointing in different directions. That way they are not picking up identical sounds (that is why you have to apply some eq and reverb). One of the microphones is pointing directly at the sound-source (this is equivalent to your mono-file). But the other microphone is split into two channels, one of which is phase-reversed (see point 4). When the two microphones are combined, the result is a very natural sounding stereo! And by adjusting the level of the microphones you simply affect the width of the stereo.

Sorry if the explanation is incomprehensible, but please try the suggestion and see if it works!

Regards, Danilo

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2006 3:18 pm
by 65CJ5
I've been looking at this too. Here's what I found. I tried some simple experiments with short mono tracks in MQ and GW using ideas from various places including this forum. Best results for me seemed to be simply putting the same mono file into MQ twice on 2 tracks, one copy per track. Pan one track full left and the other full right, then zoom in and just nudge one track slightly ahead of the other one and you get instant simulated stereo.

Another process that worked was to change the EQ of the mono track slightly. Put the original track and the EQ'd track into MQ, pan them, and again, you get "simulated stereo."

However, you don't have a lot of control over the final sound you get and all that takes quite a bit of time and I'm going to have a *lot* of tracks to do. So I looked at these 2 plugins capable of "stereoizing" a mono signal:

http://www.qsound.com/
http://www.nugenaudio.com/

The Qsound are the DirectX plugins (which should work in GW), and the NuGen are VST plugins (which as far as I know won't work in GW). Either will work with my Cubase LE that I use when transferring audio through the Presonus Firepod into the computer. The Qsound plugins are about $80, and the NuGen was only $10. Since the NuGen VSTs are cheap and available for demo use I tried that first. It worked so well that for only $10 I went ahead and bought it last night (only thing I didn't like about it was it registers itself to the machine you are on, so moving it would be a real pain). I'm still looking at the Qsound stuff as well and if I try them I'll let you know how they work. The stuff I'd be using them on is worth the expense to me if I find some problem with the NuGen plugin.

For the occasional 1 or 2 files, the nudged/EQ'd file trick would be OK. If you have a lot of tracks to do and/or need more flexibility in the sound output itself, the plugins are better and pay for themselves very quickly. Plus you have a lot of nice presets to choose from on the fly which, again, speeds things up considerably.

Stan

Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2006 4:51 pm
by Perticelli
why cant you copy the file to another window, then mix it back into the opposite channel? then you have one in the right and one in the left.
isnt that stereo?