Sounds like the blogger has a big imagination, or a step was passed over.
Post a link.

The OP is probably referring to Bill Meyer's, a.k.a. guerillabill, You Tube video:



titled Solve mono audio or missing audio channel in Sony Vegas Movie Studio.

It's obvious to me from his video why you'd want to duplicate one channel onto another when you've recorded onto only one channel.

He's not actually swapping the tracks, but he's using the swap feature in MS to duplicate the one track he started with.

After he's used the swap feature he now has audio playing through both Left and Right channels. How that could "make no sense" to someone makes "no sense" to me.

It seems to me that both methods in the video result in identical output on both L & R channels. Why would the 'swap' method give any sort of stereo effect?

The duplicate feature just creates a second audio track with the audio in the same channel as the first track. Bill Meyer's swap technique duplicates and drops the mono audio into the opposite channel on a new track.

Duplicating to a second channel on the same track, you have audio in two channels. Not exactly 'stereo' sound, but you'd have sound in two speakers which to me sounds better than just one.

But, if you wanted to do something creative, like say you have an audio recording of an interview. You could work with your individual left and right tracks now and have the interviewer's voice on one channel and the guest's voice on another. So, if the interviewer is on the left of the screen, the interviewer's voice plays on the left speaker/channel and vice versa for the guest. Okay, so far you may not need two tracks to do this, just two channels.

But, if the the two channels were on the same track, any effect you applied with would be be applied to all channels. So, if the interviewer's voice was much louder than the guest's; by SWAP-DUPLICATING to a second track - not just the second channel - you could raise the guest's voice on the second audio track all at once, instead of going along one track and raising or lowering a voice every time they spoke.

Now, you might say, well you have to go along and raise the guest's voice each time, so it's the same amount of work. Not really - but anyhow, reverse this. Lower the interviewer's track to match the guest's track. Now maybe you see why two tracks and not just one track are required.

Or, you could add a third sound behind one person and not the other. Or, you could remove a hum that appears behind one person and not the other. The possibilities are rather large.

Point is, having mono sound on one channel in a stereo video sucks to start off with. Duplicating the mono channel onto another is a good start. But, if your project requires more creative touches, the swap feature is a fast way to copy and drop your mono onto a second channel on a second track at the same time in one step.

I can imagine all types of creative uses for this technique. So, I still don't see why any of this is so hard to understand. Seems rather obvious. If someone could explain what I'm missing to make it not obvious for me as well, maybe then I could see where the doubt is.

Doc, all the additional possibilities are fine. The doubt comes from the original statement that this would create a stereo effect, which it most certainly does not.

From the original description, it would have been better off to select the one original channel to be the "only" channel and leave it mono. The only thing accomplished by the original procedure is to use twice as much drive space to create zero difference.

The original post doesn't say 'it would create a stereo effect' - it says, the same as Bill Meyer's video, that it will sound 'MORE LIKE STEREO'. Having sound coming from two speakers - even if the sounds are the same - definitely sounds more like stereo than only one channel or speaker,

No one said it will 'create a stereo effect' - just 'more like stereo'. Who said it will create a stereo effect? Not me, not the original poster not Bill Meyers.

Now, after that's said, I will now say it's a stereo effect. Placed equally between two speakers the sound will be balanced and in balanced stereo when coming through both the left and right channels.

So, until I said it, no one's said it's a stereo effect. Both Bill and the OP said 'more like a stereo' effect - which it is. So where's the doubt?

And it definitely wouldn't have been better leaving it mono on one channel - as you can see in Bill's video it is on one channel - unless you're deaf in one ear.

So for someone not deaf in one ear there is too more than 'zero difference'.

No no no. No one's talking about leaving it in only one speaker. Vegas has a function to use ONE channel as MONO, meaning it would come out of both speakers evenly. That result is no different than duplicating the one channel to the other, whether swapped or not, except that duplicating it takes twice the drive space. Sonically there is zero difference.

From memory, a "mono" audio file automatically sends the same mono signal to both speakers (left and right).

If you have a stereo audio file, but only one channel has recorded audio, you can just right click on the event, select "Channels", and select "Left" or "Right", and that channel will be sent to both speakers. (from memory -- I think that's right...)

@Doc -- I agree that if you had two people recorded on a single channel, that duplicating the track might have some advantages, as you illustrated.

@Kelly -- I pretty much agree with what you've been saying except for the "twice the drive space" part. Even if you duplicate a track and swap the channels, the events on the timeline are only referencing the same, original audio file, right? So no additional hard drive space? Or is there some subtlety that I'm overlooking?