I have SMS 12 Platinum and this is how I do it.

Put your video/audio event on the timeline. Click on the audio track and "Ungroup" the audio from the video. (If I don't ungroup them, I get a second copy of the video in the next steps). Select the audio track and copy it to the clipboard. Click the mouse on a different audio track and paste the audio into that track. At this point, you have 2 copies of your audio that contains both left and right audio streams. Right click the original audio track and select "channels" and "left only". Right click the other audio track and select "channels" and "right only". You'll have the 2 mics on separate audio tracks. Select the video track and both audio tracks and regroup them.

(Chienwork's post showed up just as I clicked the "post" button.)

Message deleted because it was answered in previous post ;-)

OP I don't understand why your two mics are ending up as a Mono ( Is it?) track. Also if you create two tracks at the EDIT-stage, from the combination, why is that any better than Mono, except I suppose you can manually Pan L&R.
Does a Mono signal play on both Output Meters . . . or is it defaulting to Left, say?

( Er, I don't recall ever having a video with only one audio_)

Or do I not understand your problem.
My on-camera stereo mics reproduce as two separated tracks. Whilst they are very similar, things do appear to be L, and R depending on the source position.

Glad to read it's sorted....but I'm still curious...

Crellin didn't say it was mono, just that both mics ended up as separate channels in the same track.

Surely that is what you would expect. I don't understand why it's a problem.

One might like to affect, modify, and pan the two mics independently, rather than having them affected the same and one be panned hard left and the other hard right. The two mics aren't necessarily recording a stereo field, as one might be a close up of the actors while the other is getting room tone or music, for example.

So OP wants the pseudo-stereo pair ( L&R) to appear as two independent separated tracts, so as Chienworks has proposed, the 2-tracks audio might be Panned in the same direction ( which you might expect if it's source was a person that walked to the Left, say.).
The two tracks might be distant and close, so whilst the scene is general chit-chat as the person travels Left, then panning would follow. When some dialogue is important, then the "close" track ( Close was panned with Distant ). By adjusting the Vol line ( Rubber-banding ), the audience would not be aware of any positional change.

Copying and deleting was proposed, and I believe I've seen switches for Left Only and Right Only - Of course to avoid confusion the Tracks might be Labelled "Close" and " Distant" - but even if I've now got it right, - there may well be better Terms which would be the model of Clarity...

Well, Crellin never said they were pseudo-stereo, nor did he ever say they were not, nor that they were true stereo, or close & distant, or anything at all about them for that matter. I was only supposing a situation in which this might be a concern.

He merely asked how to have each mic appear on a separate track and therefore we provided the solution. I don't believe any particulars of the "why" matter. All that matters is that he can now do what he wants to do, for whatever reason that may be. :)

Well said.

One might like to affect, modify, and pan the two mics independently, rather than having them affected the same and one be panned hard left and the other hard right.

I think that you've come up with an ingenious explanation, but not sure it holds up. The OP stated "When I shoot video, I usually shoot with two mics that both feed into a device made by Beachtek that plugs directly into where I'd ordinarily plug in a mic on my camera."

Surely whatever type of mics he was using any streo information from them would be lost when connecting to the mic input on his camera.

The theory about close and distant mics seems more feasible and, I suppose, he might want to apply different correction to the two sound tracks.

It would be interesting to hear from the OP what was his actual motive for splitting the track.

Surely whatever type of mics he was using any streo information from them would be lost when connecting to the mic input on his camera.

Many (if not most) mini-jack mic inputs on camcorders are stereo, not mono.

Yes, but they would not retain stereo information from two stereo mics.

No where did Crellin say "two stereo mics".

And ... we have no idea if the application is for stereo sound or not.

Hi Folks,

Interesting comments.

Both mics are mono. These end up as separate mono channels (for lack of a better word) on a stereo track. Left and right.

And, yes, the reason for wanting two separate tracks is that I'd like to apply different effects to each channel.

Good ideas on ways to split these mics out. I'll give it a try this weekend and get back with you if I run into hiccups.

One other question: does anyone have experience with sound on a Sony VG20? Seems like the VG20's ability to record quality sound isn't all that great. Any thoughts?

Thanks, as always, for your great and very thorough comments.

CS

I was referring to this statement by Chienworks "One might like to affect, modify, and pan the two mics independently, rather than having them affected the same and one be panned hard left and the other hard right."

Clearly the mics can only be panned independently if they are stereo.

Anyway, all have become clear in the previous post.

"Clearly the mics can only be panned independently if they are stereo."

Not sure where you're getting that idea. The only thing required for panning is that they be in a project with a stereo output mix. The mics themselves can be mono, and the tracks they are on can be mono. Pan doesn't care what the source is, it only affects where that sound appears in the output stereo field. Take a look at pretty much any audio mixer and you'll see a number of mono mic input strips each with an L-R pan control.

Probably I'm being obtuse, but if you have only two channels and you can create envelopes for volume and pan what else would you want to adjust by panning independently?

Well, for one thing, independent panning! You can't create separate pans for each channel when they're on the same track.

Here's an example, and i'm not saying this has anything to do with Crellin's original question, but his question *could* cover this situation: What if one mic is center stage picking up ambient, while the other mic is on the performer, who wanders around the stage? You'd want to be able to pan the performer's mic to follow him as he wanders, but not pan the other. Or maybe there are two performers with wireless mics who move around independently of each other; you'd want to follow both, but independently. You don't want to pan both channels to the left when only one actor moves.

Panning aside, what if one wants to add different EQ to each mic? Or add EQ to one and compression and reverb to the other? Or even simply ride gain on one without affecting the other? Can't do any of these when they're on the same track.

What i often end up with when close-mic recording small musical groups is one channel has only two of the performers while the other channel has only the other two. Played back as-is this sounds unnatural. I like to pan the the channels partially toward center so that there's a nice even blended mix across the stereo spectrum. However, even this simple operation cannot be completed in Vegas without splitting the two channels into separate tracks.

I think you'll be a lot more comfortable with what's going on if you stop thinking "stereo" or "two channels", and instead think "multitrack", since that's what's really going on here. Crellin's problem was that his multiple input tracks ended up on the same track in Vegas, which prevented independent control of them. He asked how to regain the independent control.

Yep,

Mike in Kentucky had the perfect answer on how to divide channels. Very easy!

And, yes, it's separate pan and volume controls I'm interested in.

Now, all I have to do if figure out some way to get the pops out.

Thanks,

CS