I have a large batch of stereo interview recordings with strong vocal on one channel and mostly noise on the other. I want to strip off the noisy channel and convert the file to mono with just the good channel - and run it as a batch process on all of the files.
I thought I could use the “stereo tool” plugin to do this but the channel attenuation sliders only go to -30dB (not full off). I found the “split stereo to two mono tracks” function but I don’t see a way to run that as a batch process (and I don’t want to keep the bad channel anyway). “Mix to mono” is not right either because it will add the noisy channel to the good channel and the “gain function” doesn’t provide separate left/right channel settings.
This seems like it should be a very simple task - how to do it?
I’m something of a casual WL8 user (WL7 was not my primary DAW but a teaching platform; WL8 is finding it’s way deeper into my mastering work so that may change), and mostly rely on RX2 and Sonic Studio process for batch work, so my answer may not be what you’re looking for. But…
…if I were faced with this challenge and only had WL and no user manual, I’d drag/drop all the clips into a montage, select-all, then split the whole track into a pair of mono tracks at the same time, and delete the “noise” channel. Then I’d “render” it all at once, saving by clip (iow let the montage bounce/save each clip in the timeline). This also lets you do other processing via the track or master effects slots, which can be handy in this sort of program, not to mention visual or metanormalizing the gain/level.
That’s just my (somewhat braindead) slacker solution. I’m sure someone will chime in with the answer you’re looking for, ie a batch routine that does the same thing.
PG, please correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the controls you are suggesting here set the file formats saved after processing. In this case I need to remove one of the channels as the first step in the batch process before other processing (the next step is noise reduction and it won’t work right if it “sees” both channels).
Is there a way to do this all in one batch setup or do I need to run the files twice - once just to separate the channels?
Yes, there is a possibility. For instance, use these 2 plugins, set like this:
The 1 first plugin will reduce the level by -48 dB. And the second plugin will mix both channels into a mono stream. Then you can add whatever plugin you like after this point.
If -48 dB is not enough, you can add 2 plugin instances as the 1st step.
I note it would be nice, in a future WaveLab update, to have a plugin simply called “Strip channel”, to do what you are looking for in an easier way.
Thank you, yes, that looks like it will work, will give that a try. What is that first plugin called and where is it in the plugins section (is it a “legacy” plugin perhaps?)? That’s exactly what I was looking for!
BTW - you don’t need a whole new plugin to do this - just extend the range of the tool’s left/right gain sliders to go all the way to -infinity (or add “mute” buttons). “Left channel only” and “Right channel only” could be presets.
What is that first plugin called and where is it in the plugins section
BTW - you don’t need a whole new plugin to do this - just extend the range of the tool’s left/right gain sliders to go all the way to -infinity (or add “mute” buttons). “Left channel only” and “Right channel only” could be presets.
Not enough. This would create a stereo stream with a muted channel, not a mono channel.
