greetings earthlings today I am answering a very frequent question which would be why is
my microphone only coming out of the left-hand speaker and how do I fix it so in order to solve
this problem I'm going to start by explaining why you are having this issue so if this is occurring
for you chances are that your audio interface is outputting a stereo signal to your computer
meaning there's a channel 1 and a channel 2 for this video we will be using the scarlett solo
1st gen but it is the same for the behringer um to the scarlett 2i2 2nd gen and if I'm not
mistaken pretty much every single to channel audio interface so when we're looking at the
scarlett solo if you connect to anything to the XLR port that means that you are using channel
1 which is going to be recorded to the left-hand side of a stereo track on the other hand if you're
connecting anything to the quarter-inch high Z or line level input that audio will be recorded to
the right-hand side of this stereo track so with that very basic explanation of how the
inputs on a 2 channel audio interface work let's go ahead and jump into my recording software I'll
show you some examples and I'll show you how to fix it additionally gamers have no fear I
did not forget about you I also walk you through how to fix this in streaming software like OBS
now if you're recording into a DAW or a piece of recording software you'll need to set up a mono
channel rather than a stereo channel so right here in Logic Pro I am setting up a new track
and I will start by demonstrating the issue with setting it up as stereo so I have input set to 1
and 2 I have input device set to Scarlett solo USB and output is really irrelevant at this point so
let's go ahead and click create here is a quick test recording audio direct into Logic Pro on
a stereo track using the folk so you can hear the issue here where the audio is only coming
out of the left-hand track so I'll go ahead and create a new track and show you how you need to
do it to get the audio out of both sides here we are setting up a new track and instead of having
input 1 & 2 we are only going to select input 1 because that is the only sound source that we
are input into the scarlet solo so I'll select that and then hit create again once we've done
that we can take a really quick glance at the mixer window to verify we've set it up properly
you can see that in this button we have it set to mono which is correct and you can also see that
we have input one selected and if you look at the meter you can see that we have the correct input
source selected we can give it a scratch and there you have it it is set up properly of course I'll
go ahead and record something and play a back so you can hear how it sounds this is a quick
test so you can hear how the microphone sounds recorded to a mono track as opposed to a stereo
track so if you're recording into a piece of software it really is that simple to resolve
rather than setting up a stereo track simply set up a mono track with the input source set to the
XLR input that you're using for your microphone so if you've already recorded something as a stereo
track with your microphone on the left hand side and nothing on the right hand side fear not there
is a very easy fix in Logic Pro 10 which I will show you right now and I am assuming that there
are similar features and similar fixes and other DAWs and recording softwares so again when we look
at the mixing window you can see that we are set as a stereo track by looking at this indicator
right here I will play it back for you here is an example of me recording as a stereo track you can
hear that it is incorrect so we will click and hold on that stereo icon and it gives us a bunch
of different options for this track we can select mono stereo left-right or surround for this fix we
will select left and I will play it back now I have channel 2 cranked all the way but nothing
is connected and what selecting left has done is isolate the left-hand side of that stereo track
and turn that into a new mono track so it ignores the right-hand side of the recording completely
which has no information and ultimately that will lead to a much cleaner signal for demonstration
purposes I will go ahead and switch this to mono let you hear it and then switch it to left and
show you the benefit of ignoring all that useless information on the right-hand side of the stereo
recording and I use this to demonstrate the benefit of using the left isolation as opposed
to down mixing the entire thing to a mono track so you could hear that there was a lot of underlying
hiss that is because I intentionally degraded the audio by cranking the gain of channel 2 with
nothing plugged into it and when it gets down mixed to mono it includes the microphone from
the left-hand side but also the noise from the right-hand side so here I will actively switch
between mono and left and mono and left here is an example of me recording as a stereo track I
have channel 2 cranked all the way but nothing is connected and I will use this to demonstrate the
benefit of using the left isolation as opposed to down mixing the entire thing to a mono track
and that is how you would fix it if you screw it up and recorded your audio already as a stereo
track but now let's go ahead and look at how you would fix this issue if you are streaming for
this example I'm using OBS 20 2.0 point three for the Mac so the first thing we'll do is come down
to our microphone / aux and then we'll jump into the properties we will make sure that the correct
audio interface is selected in this case we are using the scarlett solo USB click okay then we
will go back into that gear icon and select advanced audio properties and all we should
have to do to fix this is select the down mix - mono I suppose we could also turn off track
2 because we are not using that we will close it and you can see in this meter right here the audio
is now mono meaning the audio is coming out the same on both left and right and the last thing
that I want to note is that if you have a mixer that has a panning dial make sure that panning
dial is set to center because if you turn it left that means the audio will come out of the left if
you turn it right that will make the audio come out of the right if it's dead center that means
the audio will come out of both the left and the right and there it is that's how you resolve the
issue of your microphone or your input only being recorded to one side of your track now
right here I'm not going to ask you to LIKE and subscribe but if you do have any questions go
ahead and leave them in the comments down below and if you see a question that you want answered
go ahead and give it a thumbs up and I will select the questions with the most thumbs up
and answer them over the next couple of months so with that being said I hope you found this
very short video helpful I will see you all next time thanks for watching thanks for listening bye