Record to USB in mono rather than stereo

[Anonymous]

Hi, firstly, please excuse the lack of technical details provided in my question!

We have an Allen & Heath GLD 112 sound board at my church, which we use for mixing the church audio as well as recording our Sunday services to a USB stick on the sound board.

I’m not one of the sound technicians who uses (or fully understands) it though – rather, my job is to take the sound recording from the USB stick, convert it to MP3, and upload it to our website.

Our preacher uses a mono microphone, but the sound board converts this into stereo output tracks/channels because we have stereo speakers in the church hall.

As a result (I assume), the recording on the USB stick is a stereo WAV file.

My question is this: is it possible for us to configure the GLD 112 so that the USB recording only uses a mono WAV file, rather than stereo? Because the source is mono, and because it’s just spoken word (not stereo music) – much like a podcast – I have no real need to have a stereo recording. And having it as a mono WAV file will mean that the file size of the WAV will be a lot smaller, which makes it faster to copy the file off the USB stick and onto my PC.

Would anyone be kind enough to give me instructions or steps on how to change the settings so that the recording is in mono, or at least point me in the right direction? 🙂

[GSLC-TechParticipant]

I don’t know how to do it with gld, but I convert my tracks to mono using audacity. Then I save it as an mp3 file.

[Anonymous]

GSLC-Tech wrote:
“I don’t know how to do it with gld, but I convert my tracks to mono using audacity. Then I save it as an mp3 file.”

Yes, that’s what I’m currently doing too. But as I wrote, I want to have the original recording in mono, so that it takes up less space on the USB stick and is faster to copy the WAV file to my PC. Using Audacity doesn’t help me with that goal.

[ScottParticipant]

The WAV file type itself can’t be changed, but you could create a mono matrix that feeds from the L+R mix and then create the WAV recording from that mix. It will still be a stereo WAV (dual mono format), but you could easily use only the L or the R track and build a mono mp3 file from that.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the info Scott! I guess that wouldn’t really help me with my goal though, which is simply to reduce the file size of the WAV on the USB stick by having the WAV itself only use a single track. Currently I’m getting a 2-track WAV, with each track essentially the same as the other (for all intents and purposes), which I then convert to mono using Audacity anyway. It sounds like your suggestion wouldn’t offer me any real advantage, and I’d still have to go through the same process of copying the larger WAV to my PC and converting it to mono in Audacity. If you’re saying there’s no other way to configure the sound board to create a single-track WAV, then I’ll have to stick with my current workflow I guess.

Thanks for confirming it for me!

[MartinParticipant]

As far as I’m aware the GLD will only export stereo wave files. Not quite understanding though the difficulty you have with transferring the wav from the stick to your pc and using audacity to export an mp3 of small file size for storage/emailing. We just convert to an mp3 of about 15Mb using the Audacity Lame converter.

[Anonymous]

It’s not a question of difficulty, but of time and convenience. I’m making recordings that are typically around 1 hour long, which results in a WAV File of about 1 GB in size. This takes several minutes to transfer to the PC – which, incidentally, is an older PC with only USB 2.0 ports rather than USB 3.0. On top of that, I then have to open it in Audacity and convert it to mono, which takes another couple of minutes.

If the original WAV file were created with a single/mono track to begin with, the file size of the WAV file would be roughly half as big, and so would take twice as fast to copy to the PC, and in addition I wouldn’t need the extra step of converting it down to mono in Audacity.

The point being, just because something is possible doesn’t mean it’s the most sensible or effient way of doing things – I was hoping to find a more efficient and time-saving process! 🙂

[Chris93Participant]

I then have to open it in Audacity and convert it to mono, which takes another couple of minutes.

If you click on the drop-down arrow to the right of the track name you can choose “split stereo to mono” and simply delete one of the tracks, there should be no processing time at all for this operation. As long as it really is a mono signal there will be no difference between summing the tracks together and just deleting one, aside from a small level difference which is something you’re probably adjusting anyway.

If you’re concerned about missing something that was panned you can record a from a mono sum of the LR via a matrix. This what I do anyway as I use the other channel for a room mic.

Unfortunately there isn’t any way to record a single track audio file via the built-in USB recorder. You could do this with Dante, but that’s an unrealistic expense if this is all you’d be using it for.

Chris

[Anonymous]

Thanks Chris93. The issue (and my original question) isn’t about Audacity though. It’s with wanting to reduce (by half) the file size of the WAV file on the USB stick by having the original recording created in mono rather than stereo. That’s the one and only thing I’m asking if it’s possible. And from yours and the other answers here, it’s clear that it’s not possible at all with this sound board.

Thanks for confirming this!

[GSLC-TechParticipant]

I don’t think dante ($$$) is necessary. You could avoid using the USB and run a mono AUX feed directly to your PC. You can record using audacity. I do this on occasions. You might need an inexpensive interface box to go between aux and the PC. I’m not a huge proponent of beheringer but …
https://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-audio/behringer-u-phoria-um2/j18451000000000?cntry=us&source=3WWRWXGP&gclid=CjwKCAjwsfreBRB9EiwAikSUHYK6HrMnU6VDQ_BxQotE644c6wqlVLoGHwuULFwOHRA-cdHidDrsghoC9DkQAvD_BwE

[Anonymous]

Thanks, but I’m only wanting to record to the USB stick. Not looking for alternative solutions or workarounds here. Thanks though!

[BranimirParticipant]

No.

You could assing only one channel to record, like Mains L only, but it will still record as a stereo track.

[Author]

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