Is there a way to mute one channel of a stereo soundbite?

[Tomas E]

I need to listen separately to the left and right channels of a stereo soundbite. Is there a way to mute one channel at a time?

[FMiguelez]

Hmmmm... Can't think of any... at least not as easy as a L/R mute would be... you'd have to use the mixer panner or a 3rd party plugin... or convert the channel to dual mono if you want mute buttons.
Trim only reduces the gain for each channel up to a (small) limit.

I think I'm brain-dead at the moment, 'cause I can't think of anything else

[stubbsonic]

Put the stereo soundbite in a stereo track (of course)
Set the output to a stereo bus pair, like bus 5 & 6
Create two aux tracks, pan them hard L and hard R, respectively
Set the input of the 1st aux track to a mono bus that corresponds left side of the bus pair, like bus 5
Set the input of the 2nd aux track to the right side mono bus, like bus 6
Now you can mute either aux track, and even pan/adjust/process either side as you wish.

[mikehalloran]

BTD de-interleaved, tracks will give you each side as a mono track. Drag them back in.

There a a few other ways to do it but this takes me a few seconds.

[FMiguelez]

Put the stereo soundbite in a stereo track (of course)
Set the output to a stereo bus pair, like bus 5 & 6
Create two aux tracks, pan them hard L and hard R, respectively
Set the input of the 1st aux track to a mono bus that corresponds left side of the bus pair, like bus 5
Set the input of the 2nd aux track to the right side mono bus, like bus 6
Now you can mute either aux track, and even pan/adjust/process either side as you wish.

Of course! That's a good one.

(I'm still brain-dead...)

However, as nice as all these methods are, wouldn't it be simpler and nicer to have mute buttons in the Trim plugin? Seems to me it's too basic a function to have to do extra routing for the sole purpose of muting signal from a side of stereo channel.

While we're at it, wouldn't it be nice if MOTU incorporated the Trim plugin in the mixer, kind of how it does it with MW Compressor and EQ?
And they could also add a Mid/Side feature in there too...

[Tomas E]

BTD de-interleaved, tracks will give you each side as a mono track. Drag them back in.

There a a few other ways to do it but this takes me a few seconds.

I thought I'd wait for your reply before digging into this subject. How many seconds did you say?

[stubbsonic]

... as nice as all these methods are, wouldn't it be simpler and nicer to have mute buttons in the Trim plugin? ...

...While we're at it, wouldn't it be nice if MOTU incorporated the Trim plugin in the mixer, kind of how it does it with MW Compressor and EQ?
And they could also add a Mid/Side feature in there too...

Hell yea!! to all three!!

Putting independent L/R mute buttons in the Trim plugin makes really good sense, especially as you may want to do some kind of automation moves that exploit a stereo track in various ways.

Having it be a permanent part of the mix window makes some sense, especially as a way of really expanding on how pan & balance can be approached- as well as phase!

With a few slight tweaks, the trim plugin could become a mid-side plug.

[HCMarkus]

Trim only reduces the gain for each channel up to a (small) limit.

Trim plugin certainly has enough range to allow one to listen and hear pretty much only one channel, which you can pan to center if you wish. Probably all you need in this situation. If total control is required, MIke's method is solid. Probably take about 15 seconds, including renaming fees to get rid of the .L and .R.

[Tomas E]

Thanks for all suggestions! I will go through them, just wanted to let you know that I'm following what is posted here.

[bayswater]

Would MStereoScope, free at Melda, do this?

The change to Trim is a brilliant suggestion. Whether it goes into the mixer or not doesn't matter to me -- it's in my templates, but the changes would be great.

[Tomas E]

However, as nice as all these methods are, wouldn't it be simpler and nicer to have mute buttons in the Trim plugin? Seems to me it's too basic a function to have to do extra routing for the sole purpose of muting signal from a side of stereo channel.

While we're at it, wouldn't it be nice if MOTU incorporated the Trim plugin in the mixer, kind of how it does it with MW Compressor and EQ?
And they could also add a Mid/Side feature in there too...

I thought that I'd throw in a feature request, so I suggested they should add the possibility to mute one channel of a stereo soundbite.

There's no way to just "mute" one side of a stereo channel. However, if you put the built in Trim plugin on the stereo audio track, you can unlink the left and right side and make either lower or higher.

This is the method I will use.

FMiguelez, if you want to I can send them a feature request regarding that mute button, but I think that you would do it better since you seem to have several ideas beyond this. Unless you're still brain-dead of course.

[mikehalloran]

Because of the way these new inexpensive USB interfaces record into GarageBand And the bounce options in that app, I get a lot of stereo files with instrument one side, voice on the other.

Because I need both sides as mono tracks, using Trim to pan and center is not as practical for me as bouncing to de-interleaved tracks and renaming the results. As HCM indicated, it takes around 15 seconds to bounce and rename the results.

This lets me drag them back in and group them accordingly knowing exactly what is on each track as I begin assembly. Likewise, I avoid the pitfalls of performing edits on the same soundbite in two different racks (yes, I know how to avoid that but this way I don’t have to). With 3–6 tracks due each week, the time savings add up.

Love the Trim plug but not for this.

[Tomas E]

Because of the way these new inexpensive USB interfaces record into GarageBand And the bounce options in that app, I get a lot of stereo files with instrument one side, voice on the other.

Why are you using GarageBand instead of DP, if I may ask?

[HCMarkus]

Because of the way these new inexpensive USB interfaces record into GarageBand And the bounce options in that app, I get a lot of stereo files with instrument one side, voice on the other.

Why are you using GarageBand instead of DP, if I may ask?

I believe Mike is getting files from others who a recording remotely, then importing files into DP.

As far as I can tell, and I've looked, GarageBand offers no way to export into a mono file. (If anyone can correct me on this, I'd love to know the method.) I'm getting remote stuff for GB users and it is always stereo files which I deal with one way or another.

Remote files from non-engineers often equals really interesting audio.

[bayswater]

I believe Mike is getting files from others who a recording remotely, then importing files into DP.

As far as I can tell, and I've looked, GarageBand offers no way to export into a mono file. (If anyone can correct me on this, I'd love to know the method.) I'm getting remote stuff for GB users and it is always stereo files which I deal with one way or another.

Remote files from non-engineers often equals really interesting audio.

Same here. GB is a quick free way to sketch out a track for a piano player. I use DSP-Q to extract mono files if needed, which is not that often. It lets you select one side of a stereo file in editor, then save or export.