How to Record Unity Audio Clips in Mono

Discover how to record audio clips in `mono` format in Unity, ensuring clear sound quality with a single channel. Learn simple coding techniques in C# .
---
This video is based on the question https://stackoverflow.com/q/77901725/ asked by the user 'Peter Bonnebaigt' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/19710961/ ) and on the answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/77915794/ provided by the user 'hijinxbassist' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/1679220/ ) at 'Stack Overflow' website. Thanks to these great users and Stackexchange community for their contributions.

Visit these links for original content and any more details, such as alternate solutions, latest updates/developments on topic, comments, revision history etc. For example, the original title of the Question was: Record Unity audio clip in mono

Also, Content (except music) licensed under CC BY-SA https://meta.stackexchange.com/help/l...
The original Question post is licensed under the 'CC BY-SA 4.0' ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... ) license, and the original Answer post is licensed under the 'CC BY-SA 4.0' ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... ) license.

If anything seems off to you, please feel free to write me at vlogize [AT] gmail [DOT] com.
---
How to Record Unity Audio Clips in Mono: A Step-by-Step Guide

When developing games or applications in Unity, capturing high-quality audio is crucial. However, if you're using a microphone and the output is in stereo, you might find that your audio clips come with two channels. This can lead to unnecessary complexity, especially if your project only requires mono audio. In this guide, we will tackle the problem of how to record audio clips in Unity in mono format, providing you with practical steps and code examples.

The Challenge

The primary challenge is to record an audio clip using your computer's built-in microphone in mono, instead of stereo. The existing recording functionality is useful, but you may want cleaner sound or simply wish to keep things simpler with one channel.

Required Modifications

To achieve mono recording, you can either directly set the recording to mono or convert the audio clip to mono after recording. Below, we’ll explore how to implement both methods.

Solution 1: Setting Up Mono Recording

When initiating a recording, Unity doesn’t provide a direct way to change the channel count. However, you can ensure you convert your audio after you've recorded it. The recording step in your code looks like this:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Solution 2: Converting to Mono

Let’s focus on converting the audio clip to mono after recording. The following function enables you to convert any audio clip into a mono audio format.

Step-by-Step Breakdown of the Conversion

Get Number of Channels: Determine how many channels the original audio clip has.

Construct Empty Data Array: Create an array for the data which will be the length of the original clip divided by the number of channels.

Sample Audio Data: Use a loop to extract data from the desired channel (usually 0) while skipping other channels.

Assign Data to New Mono Clip: Set the sampled data into a new mono audio clip.

Here's a code snippet to illustrate this:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Final Steps

After implementing the conversion function, you can utilize this method immediately after stopping the recording to ensure your audio clip is stored in mono.

You may also want to test your method using a stereo audio track to check if the channel index functions properly. For example, setting channelIndex to 0 when working with stereo audio clips will sample the left channel.

Conclusion

By following the steps outlined above, you should be able to confidently record audio clips in mono using Unity, ensuring your projects maintain clear sound quality without unnecessary complexity from stereo tracks. If you've encountered problems along the way, don't hesitate to revisit the suggested code and adjust as needed. Happy coding!