Mono after export?

[Christoph Pfeifer]

Hello everybody,

I'm new with cakewalk and experimenting a bit with it at the moment. Trying to create the musical background for a video with it.

I recorded guitar and bass with my ancient zoom H4n (still awesome quality) over jack cable. I put the two parts into the cakewalk project, added other things like drums, vocals, misc, but after exporting the thing, the guitar and bass parts were mono. Only on the left side. 

Now I guess that is cause i recorded it mono with my zoom h4n...

So here are my two questions:
1. Can i fix it with the already recorded tracks? I mean, in cakewalk it DOES sound stereo. Shouldnt there be a way  to also make it so for the exported file?
2. If i were to record it again - how do I record it stereo on my zoom h4n, if i wann keep using a jack cable? I understand that its not super likely that many here own that recording device and know an answer. So its really more about the first question.

Edited Tuesday at 06:09 PM by Christoph Pfeifer
wrote "drums" instead of "guitar"

[57Gregy]

24 minutes ago, Christoph Pfeifer said:

I put the two parts into the cakewalk project

How did you "put the two parts" into Cakewalk?
If by using a cord from the Zoom to your computer sound card or audio interface and recording that into audio tracks in Cakewalk, then you need to select a mono input instead of a stereo input in Cakewalk before recording.

[Christoph Pfeifer]

Sorry I was a little too vague.

I connected the guitar with the zoom h4n via jack cable. Recorded it in wav format on the internal sd card. Then put that card into my laptop. Opened it with winamp: it was mono, only sound from the left side. Imported the file into cakewalk and it was automatically stereo. Worked on the project. Then exported it and all of a sudden guitar and bass part were mono again. 

[David Baay]

The input to the H4n is probably stereo, but if you're going direct in with a cable from an electric guitar, that's going to be mono, and recorded on the left side of a stereo file. Sonar would import that as a stereo track by default,  and the sound would be only in the left channel throughout the production unless you change the Interleave on the track to mono which would put it in the center, but you still woudn't be able to control the Pan position. The better way to handle this is to bounce the stereo track to Split Mono (see Tracks > Bounce to Track(s) options) and delete the flatline track from the right side. 

All mono tracks will continue to sound mono through a stereo bus unless processed by FX that specifically create a stereo image with differing left and right-channel information.

Here is one technique for "stereoizing" a mono track that was recently re-surfaced:

The alternative would be to record from the H4n's stereo mics near an amplifier(assuming both electric bass and guitar) in a room that isn't too lively. Or double-track the mono recordings, reproducing the timing and articulation as closely s possible (i.e. playing along with playback of the original tracks) and pan one left and one right.

It might also be possilbe to just use the H4n as a pair of mics with a preamp to be recorded directly in a stereo track in  Sonar via whatever you're using as an audio interface.

Edited Tuesday at 11:15 PM by David Baay

[Christoph Pfeifer]

Damn, that's helpful! I'm not often in forums but maybe I should change that. Thanks!

I'm too new to this for the first suggestion - I would need to look up two dozen things first  , so I think I'll go for the rerecording via amp as you suggested. Totally makes sense. First I just played it with my accoustic guitar into the h4n's stereo mics but was bothered by the plectrum sounds - so I switched to the jack cable. Which led to the mono fail. But it shouldn't be a problem with an amp.

Thanks for your help!

I'm curious - since you seem to know the device - how do you think the h4n is holding up for today? I haven't used it in over ten years, just recently dug it up again.

[David Baay]

48 minutes ago, Christoph Pfeifer said:

I'm curious - since you seem to know the device - how do you think the h4n is holding up for today?

I know of it, but not details of that model. I have an H1n from a couple years ago that I have used only a handful of times to record acoustic piano via the mics. And I experimented using it as an audio interface for recording directly into Sonar just to see how that worked. It's been a while but I recall that it worked that way as well but not in a way that allowed input monitoring.

Long-term you will want to look into getting a basic ASIO audio interface with built-in preamps and a mic or two to get the most our of Sonar and not be messing around with file transfers and syncing the project to audio recorded without a click.

P.S.  If you want to share the two original files from the H2n for download somewhere (or zip up the project folder with the two left-channel tracks already imported), I could set up the two mono tracks in a project with the stereoizer setup configured for you to experiment with.

Edited Tuesday at 11:24 PM by David Baay

[Bass Guitar]

It seems that the ZoomH4n has an ASIO driver. 
I have a Q2 camera and a Zoom L8 mixer/ interface. I also have a Tascam DR40 which I think is identical in design. But it doesn’t have the driver. 
 

Zoom makes good stuff. And the ASIO driver is top quality. 
 

First stop would be go to the Zoom support page and download the Driver and latest firmware update. Also grab the manual if you don’t already have it. 
 

If the ASIO driver works you might have yourself a cool 4 x2 audio interface with built in mikes and XLR / Combi jacks. 

[mettelus]

22 hours ago, Christoph Pfeifer said:

Can i fix it with the already recorded tracks?

Before getting carried away with re-recording with some oddball setup, you very much can use pre-recorded tracks and do pretty much anything you want with them. Firstly, anything recorded from a single point (microphone, guitar jack, etc.) IS mono. Secondly, even mono tracks (one single wave form) get processed as stereo as soon as you put a stereo effect on it (just how DAWs work, they need to accommodate the stereo output an effect produces).

Couple quick things:

1. Is your track hard-panned to one side? Seems that way, and if it is you can bounce the track (in Track View, menu at top of left pane... "Bounce to Tracks") and choose "Split Mono" in the options to separate the left and right channels into individual tracks. One of them will have nothing in it (because your imported file was hard-panned to one side), so you can just delete that one. That will leave you with the remaining channel as a mono track. Side note: if recording directly into a DAW, the input (often "mono/left") and interleave (mono versus stereo) will affect what the track looks like as you record it. Again, you can change that even after the fact if it is truly a mono signal in the first place.
2. Mono tracks will be processed "straight down the center," unless you pan them or add effects that change the left and right channels (reverbs, stereo FX, there are a lot that do this... most FX have a stereo output, not nearly as many are "mono"). The track can be left "mono" (often preferred) but the output will be in stereo (even if straight down the middle, since both sides will be the same).
3. Easiest way to learn is to try extreme settings with things (knobs all the way to the right or left) and hear what it does. As you get more familiar you will understand things better that way.

It might help us to get better clarification of what you are experiencing (both what the original files are, and how they look when you import them). I may have misconstrued what you said, but I also wanted to point out that it is more how you are working with what you have now and learning how things work (some things are "under the hood" as they say, so not always obvious to new folks).

[Mr No Name]

use a plug in on the channel to swap it to a mono channel, you'll find a free one somewhere.

[Bass Guitar]

The way my Tascam DR 40 records to the SD card is there’s 2 Stereo Wave files. 
They will have a date stamp so usually look something like 

2025-8-6-001-1/2  =the stereo mikes

2025-8-6-001-3/4 =the Combi jacks

I have recorded most of my live shows this way. 
It is clamped to my Mike stand pointing at an angle so I can read the screen and operate it. So the mikes more or less hear what I hear. 
The Combi jacks 3&4 are fed with aux sends that are my vocals in 3  and my guitar in 4. 
 

The mikes are just for reference but it’s a pretty good mix. 
To separate the 3/4 vocals and guitar from the stereo track is simple.
The vocals are the left and guitar is the right. 
Copy the stereo track. 
Pan one to left one to right

bounce to clip choose mono. 
now I have the vocals and guitar on their own mono tracks. 
I can delete the stereo tracks. 
 

But there’s no need to use the SD card when as far as I can tell the device is a good quality audio interface. 

 

[Bass Guitar]

1 hour ago, Mr No Name said:

use a plug in on the channel to swap it to a mono channel, you'll find a free one somewhere.

This is not necessary. Simply pan any stereo track to the side you want and bounce to clip/ mono

[Mr No Name]

I think the issue was recording into one side of a stereo input thinking it was a mono input, if you panned hard right wouldn't the signal disappear?

not all equipment utilises the left channel of a stereo input as a instrument input. (mono)

I 've had this happen before, I just scrubbed it and started again.

[Bass Guitar]

The Zoom H4 has a pair of mono inputs which I am assuming is what the OP meant by saying they are using a cable. So those are recorded as a stereo pair. There might be a setting that can change that and reading the manual would shed some light on that.
Read my post regarding the Tascam recorder. It can do that and you can even use it as a multi track recording device to overdub separate takes to the 4 channels. But they will still show as stereo pairs. The Zoom might be different. = read manual. 

So we will assume all that is happening here is the OP is dragging the stereo files from the SD card into Cakewalk which will create a stereo track. Easy to fix as I keep saying.

But I’m also saying forget the stupid SD card and use it as an interface. 
It will probably show up in a Daw under ASIO as track inputs 

Ch1/2 stereo 

Ch 1 mono

Ch 2 mono

Ch3/4 stereo 

Ch 3 mono

Ch 4 mono 

Edited 7 hours ago by Bass Guitar

[Mr No Name]

all very confusing.

Edited 7 hours ago by Mr No Name
?

[Bass Guitar]

From the Manual 

• XLR-1/4-inch combo jacks allow direct connection of any sound source. We’ve loaded the H4n with a versatile array of input options to accommodate a variety of recording sources. Any type of microphone (including condensers), electric instrument (guitar, bass, keyboard) or line level source can be connected to the H4n.

• It can be used as an Audio Interface/SD card reader for a computer.

An onboard USB 2.0 Hi-Speed jack allows direct connection to a computer.

You can use it as an audio interface with built-in effects (sampling rate 44.1 kHz).

 

• Record one track at a time and then combine them.

• Overdubbing.

• Record using effects

• Mixing track levels after recording.

• Indoor or outdoor rehearsals.

Page 72- Mono recording-Engaging blends the left and right signals down to mono then records dual-mono to each left and right channel. 2

 

Only thing is the manual doesn't mention the ASIO driver. So there's a possibility that came along later therefore why you need to do the firmware update as well. 

Edited 7 hours ago by Bass Guitar