So I want to make a file with a sound effect in the left channel only. This should be simple, right? I make a stereo track with the sound effect in the left channel and silence in the right. But on playback -- whether in Audacity or as an exported mp3 or wav or aiff, there’s a slight but unmistakable echo of the sound effect in the right channel, which spoils it. Doesn’t matter if I render silence in the channel, or slight noise.

Obviously, there’s a lot more to this stuff than I’d ever imagined. Why is there no unbreachable wall separating the left and right channels? Is there some way I can make it work?

I ask because I put out a haunted scarecrow last night, using Garage Band as a voice changer to make it speak and interact. It used only one speaker, so I thought, I can put another speaker in my creepy reaper, so it plays a shrieks when it lunges at somebody. But it won’t work as well if the scream also comes out of the scarecrow, or the spooky monster voice out of the reaper. My setup is already clumsy enough with the security camera DVR and monitor and amplifier and laptop and the scarecrow controls and creepy reaper string.

Use a mono track panned left in the stereo mix? Don't use audacity.

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“There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in."

no idea what is going on there, but the good news is that you have one year to figure it out.

Need more information, but there might be nothing wrong with the audio source file. The observed effect could be due to channel crosstalk in the amplifier and/or cabling.

Possibly due to mp3 encoding?
[manual.audacityteam.org]

Great help here!

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San Antonio, TX (in the old city)


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