Split R and L tracks in Audacity?

[Collegelax]

I just recorded my latest Skype interview through my mixer/IRiver while panning me (host) to the Left and my remote guest to the Right.

I have the raw (MP3) audio pulled into Audacity. How can I split the tracks to edit them individually?

I need to bump up the volume on the remote guest and then re-compress the whole thing together. I sound too "hot" (loud). So does my remote guest. (All wavelenghts - both channels - are maxed at 1.)

Any ideas on how to clean up this audio? Thanks.

[Yotto]

You're totally in the left track, and he's totally in the right track?

Click the name of the stereo track, between the X and the back down-arrow.
Select "Split Stereo Track"

This will give you two tracks, but each track will still be right/left. So, for each track:

Click the name of the stereo track, between the X and the back down-arrow.
Select "Mono"

All set!


As far as cleaning up the audio, I'm not 100% sure what the problem is. Fiddle with the follwoing:
Amplify. Use negative nubmers to make it quieter.
Compression. Fiddle with the values to see if it helps.
Levelator. Not an Audacity option, a seperate program for Windows. I've never used it (Not a Windows user) but I hear it's like magic.

[paul]

I think what you mean is clipping. If the audio is badly clipped, then nothing will solve your problem.

Sony has a plugin called 'clipped peak restoration' which works pretty well for moderate clipping. I don't know of anything for free, but you can actually use the draw tool in soundforge (or audacity?) to "round out" the flat plateaus of the clipped peaks. first you have to give yourself room to draw these peaks with some volume attenuation.

that's pretty much what the plugin I mentioned does. It comes with the sony noise reduction package.