How to balance digital audio L/R playback on Mac

Discussion in 'Mac / Hackintosh' started by NeXT, Apr 2, 2020.

  1. NeXT

    NeXT Member

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    Greetings Fellow Humans,

    In these times of crisis I hope to find You all in the best possible spirits.

    Meanwhile more time available has made me spend some time practicing a real instrument and found a hurdle seemingly impossible to overcome while trying to play along hard panned records:

    How do I balance (pan left/right) audio on a Mac that is using spdif output?

    A plugin would also do.

    Thanks in advance and healthy vibes to You all.

     
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  3. dabugen

    dabugen Noisemaker

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  4. NeXT

    NeXT Member

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    Thank you dabugen!

    Of course this plugin from waves is more oriented toward production.

    My needs are much simpler: an audio player to easily balance left/right like an old(?) amplifiers so I can play along the Coltrane rhythm section (when there are no witnesses within earshot :P ) or some Doors songs.
    Bonus feature would be to take a channel and make it come out from both channels.

    On the Mac if the audio output is analog there is a native balance control; if you use spdif you're out of luck as far as I can tell. :(
    Why make such a simple feature so elusive?

    I use CogX as a quick-and-dirty player and itunes isn't even authorized on my mac :/ as i loathe it.

    Thanks again
     
  5. angie

    angie Producer

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    I don't know if I have understand your question but... download Audacity, it's free. open it and choose New .. drag the file in the window. go in the inspector there's a little black triangle, choose split stereo to mono .... now you have two mono files and you can solo the one you need
     
  6. Blue

    Blue Audiosexual

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    What device is connected to your spdif port?Doesn't it have any L/R knob?

    Or what software are you using in your Mac?It probably has a L/R knob too,I guess.
     
  7. tzzsmk

    tzzsmk Audiosexual

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    Best Answer
    Hijack by Rogue Amoeba lets you throw plugins into MacOS audio signal chain,
    it already has basic plugins like PAN/mono included :yes:
     
  8. NeXT

    NeXT Member

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    Thanks for all the replies.

    Blue:
    I have a benchmark audio dac1 that does not have a pan/balance knob. Also the software (CogX) does not have a balance control.

    Angie:
    Thanks for the Audacious advice. Useful but clunky as I'd just like to play through music files (Stereo mp3/flac) and when something strikes my fancy just pan out the channel with the part I'd like to transcribe so I can play over the original rhythm section. Also Aebersold (for example ) have splitted files for playalong as do many others.

    tzzsmk:
    Eureka! thanks! that really does the trick (and many others)

    I remain surprised that such a fundamental function is absent from system audio controls and most audio players that I tried.
    My suspicion was/is that I was overlooking something basic. Maybe not.

    Thanks again and Healthy vibes to All Humans.

    NeXT
     
  9. NeXT

    NeXT Member

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    Just a quick follow-up:

    The two built-in effects to use are: Balance(self explanatory) and Channels where you can duplicate, invert etc.
    Actually just use channels, super nice!

    Still wish for player integration but happy camper now.

    Thanks again.
    Cheers.
     
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