UA-25EX sound card

[twodogs09]

Hi All,

(this is probably a really idiotic question, so please go easy on me!)

For teaching purposes, I've been recording some jazz guitar videos at home using an i-Mac and the built in i-Movie package. I am capturing the audio with a stereo condenser mic plugged into input 1 on my Roland UA-25 EX interface. This is resulting in mono audio, which wouldn't matter, except that i-Movie doesn't seem to have a way of letting me spread it across both channels - the result is that everything just comes out of the left speaker.

I dare say if I plugged a second mic into input 2 of the interface, I would then capture stereo sound in both channels, and at some stage I probably will want to buy another mic anyway. Nevertheless, it strikes me that there must be a simpler way - after all, the objective isn't to produce studio quality audio.

It doesn't help that the UA-25 interface (which was recommended to me by a Mac owning friend) came packaged only with PC-compatible software, which I imagine included tutorials and quick start guides etc that I haven't seen.

Anyway, I'd be hugely grateful for any help - just bear in mind that I am very new to all this and by no means knowledgable re. this kind of thing.

Thanks in advance!

[Bill C]

Is there a stereo jack plug on the mic lead? I'm just thinking if so you could maybe get a splitter lead to feed L and R to the two mono inputs on the audio interface.

[twodogs09]

Thanks Bill - that's a good idea.

At the moment, it's an XLR balanced line, but I could look into getting another cable or a splitter, like you suggest.

[markf]

or if you have one, use an effect, or other pedal that has L and R or, two outputs. I use my looper this way.

[Bill C]

Is the mic itself stereo, or is it a mono mic using a balanced (wired as per stereo) cable with 48v phantom power being fed to the mic via the cable?

Or maybe a better question, which model of mic is it?

[twodogs09]

It's an Audio Technica AT4040
like so:
Audio-Technica - Microphones, headphones, wireless microphone systems, noise-cancelling headphones & more : AT4040 Cardioid Condenser Microphone

thanks guys, really appreciate the suggestions!
JT

[Bill C]

ok - it appears to be a mono mic that uses a balanced (as if stereo) cable to reduce noise and to supply phantom power to the mic.

I think this rules out my and markf's earlier suggestions

Assuming you are recording direct into iMovie have a look in your Audio control panels on the Mac to see if you can assign input 1 to both L and R channels for audio recording.

Or, there may be a feature in iMovie to say "treat the audio track as stereo"

... or, export the audio track from iMovie import and copy the left channel to the right channel in an audio editor (maybe garageband?) then reimport into iMovie. This seems long winded but might allow some post-production to sharpen up the sound as well.

If you're still stuck - you could try on one of the recording forums like soundonsound or gearslutz

[twodogs09]

I think you're right - exporting the audio to garage band might be the way forward. As far as I can see the necessary can't really be done within I-Movie.
Many thanks once again, for the help.