Mono CD to Mono MP3

Well, that's what I mean. The mix would be a single track (on analog tape) so it would be doubled in order to appear in the left channel and the right channel on the CD. I want that single track to create an mono MP3 that is a single track.

Part of the reason here is that if I re-rip all of the Beatles albums and I make it a mono MP3 the file size will be smaller.

So, my question is: How would one take just the left or right channel of the CD and rip it to a mono MP3.

Thanks for all the input. I decided to do some experimenting. Here is what I found:

I extracted a song off of the first disc with Toast. Opened it in Peak LE and confirmed that yes, it does have the exact same content in both speakers. Saved as dual Mono to get a single mono file.

The AIFF of the stereo track was 30 MB. The Mono one was 15 MB. No surprises there. Did all of the following in iTunes. Apple Lossless converting the stereo AIFF gave me a stereo 13 MB file. Tried importing as MP3 in stereo, in mono, with and without variable bit rate. All at 44.1 and 320 kbps. Listened to the first section of each of the results at decent volume right after the other. I did all of the rips at the highest quality settings (no experiments on lower settings - I'm not interested in decreasing the quality if I can manage it).

Ripping to a stereo MP3 gave a file about 5.8 MB. Ripping to Mono MP3 gave a gave a file about 3.4 to 3.6 MB. Using AAC gave a smaller file but I was doing all the MP3s at the 320 setting and AAC only let me use 256 as a max. For MP3 I used 320 kbps which means it uses 160 for mono. If I used VBR and set it to Highest quality, it actually ended up using a setting above 160.

In the end, I was not able to hear any difference in quality, in track volume, or in the overall tonal balance between any of the test files. Basically they all sounded exactly the same to me.

My conclusion is to not bother trying to extract a single track from the CDs. I will just put the discs in and set iTunes import preferences to MP3 at 320 kbps, 44.1, mono, with VBR on. I am convinced this will give me an excellent quality file at a pretty small file size.

Thanks again for the input.

I just went and checked. Since I had clicked "VBR" it grayed out the 320 option. If VBR is not checked, you do indeed have the option under AAC of choosing Mono and 320 kbps. If you prefer AAC over MP3, that might be the way to go.

One final note for when you get your box set, when you get to Help and Rubber Soul, don't forget those have the album in mono and then the album again in the original stereo (all music in one speaker all vocals in the other). I unchecked the stereo tracks and ripped mono MP3s and then unchecked the mono tracks and checked the stereo ones, changed the import setting to "Stereo" and ripped again. Just means you have to do 2 passes on these 2 CDs. And of course, make sure you set it back to mono before going through the rest of the CDs...

Right, all of the mono versions are the original final versions of the albums.

By "original" mono I meant the way these two albums were originally released when they put out the stereo LPs. These two had all of the music in one speaker and all of the vocals in the other. When the CDs first came out in 1987, George Martin remixed these 2 albums for a more natural stereo mix and these 1987 mixes are now the standard stereo mixes (i.e. that is what you get in the stereo box and if you buy the remastered stereo CD separately). The "original" stereo mixes are included on the mono box set CDs as a bonus.

{quote:title=Matt-Boy wrote:}By "original" mono I meant the way these...{quote}

Sorry, that should have been "By 'original' stereo".