Audio Recording software

[SlartiB]

Hi,
I'm looking for software that will allow me to record from line in on my computer and allow me to control left and right levels independently as I record from the line in connection. I'm basically looking for software that will let me do what any normal stereo recorder will allow me to do, i.e. independently control Left and Right stereo input as I record. I've tried Audiacity and Kristol, but neither of these seem to allow this...

any help would be appreciated.

Thx

Mark

[edDV]

Shall we assume a Windows PC?

Free -- Audacity

Free if you play rebates -- Sony Audio Studio (entry SoundForge).

[SlartiB]

Thanks edDV,
As I stated above, I have tried Audacity and it does NOT appear to let you independently control gain on Left and Right input while recording...

Windows PC.

Thx

[AlanHK]

I'm looking for software that will allow me to record from line in on my computer and allow me to control left and right levels independently as I record from the line in connection.

You should have that as part of the Windows audio control panel.
Often the audio driver gives you an enhanced version of the Volume control on the taskbar with a bunch of mixing controls for both input and output.

[edDV]

Thanks edDV,
As I stated above, I have tried Audacity and it does NOT appear to let you independently control gain on Left and Right input while recording...

Windows PC.

Thx

In Vista and Win7, balance is located in the "Recording Device" panel. Some devices have more than two channels.

[edDV]

Generally you set the device gain to 100. When you press the record button, stereo track gain and balance controls appear at the left as shown here. Master record gain is at the top.

[AlanHK]

When you press the record button, stereo track gain and balance controls appear at the left as shown here. Master record gain is at the top.

Yes, but the balance controls for input are part of the Windows audio control panels as mentioned above, not Audacity itself. Audacity itself can only set master gain.

[netmask56]

If you could provide details of your computer operating system and what brand sound card you have would help. More importantly post a specific example of what you want to do. There are plenty of programs that allow you to vary the level of left or right and overall but it does depend a lot on what you want to achieve from a production or project point of view.

CoolEdit Pro in track view
ditto for Adobe Audition
Vegas just load a dummy video file
Sonar or even Cakewalk with a bit of a fiddle
I haven't used Audacity but if it has a track view then probably it will do it.

[SlartiB]

Guys...
thanks for the help and suggestions. Here is what I'm trying to do. I have a VHS video tape that I need the audio from. one track is voice, the other track music. The music track is so loud it completely overpowers the voice track. Also, unfortunatly, there is some bleed of the music track onto the voice track, so I can't just record them separately and then later mix...at least not easily. If I had a program that would allow me to adjust levels while recording (like I could if I was recording on a tape deck with separate Left and Right audio record levels) I could get a single stereo WAV or MP3 file to add to the project I'm working on.

System is a dell 8400
Pentium 4 3.00 GHz proc
1 GIG of memory
Sound cards:
SoundMAX Integrated Digital Audio card
C-Media Wave Device
Hope that helps.

Thx

Mark

[edDV]

OS?

XP usually has a record level panel like the one AlanHK showed above. You would adjust the circled control "Line In Balance".

Vista and Win7 have the Sound Device Line-In controls I showed above.

[netmask56]

The best way to do it IMO is, rather than try to do it "on the fly" when recording to a another medium is to demux into video and audio tracks and then using say an old version of CoolEditPro (which even the trial version only cripples the effects bar one) You can load the audi track into the "track view pane" and then set the balance between left and right along the time line giving you complete control of the voice to music balance over the whole file length - maybe you can do this in Goldwave? or Audacity?. Anyway you can do it in programs like Adobe Audition or CoolEditPro.

Then remux the video and wave file back into a mpeg2 file that you can use to make a DVD etc. You can remux using a free program MPEGStreamclip (a little known and not very well documented ability) You place the video and audio in a folder together making sure they both have the same name except for the suffix - select the video in MPEGStreamclip and it will pick up the audio. For any audio work that involves processing it's best to work with wave files if possible and do any conversion to a lossy format like mp3 at the final stage.

EDIT: You can also do it in Womble - bring up the volume control and you have separate left - right and master control, but this is global rather than using the time line in the other programs. The sound line facility in Womble only works on the left right combo.