WavePad Follows Switch Settings?

[jettca1]

I work at a church and I do a lot of work converting audio files for the web. The files come to me recorded in stereo (WAVE), but the information on both left & right tracks is the same (it's just speech, sermons to be precise). I've used Switch for years now to convert these to mono, to reduce file size.

 

Recently, I began using WavePad, because it was the only destructive audio editor I could find. All I wanted WavePad to do is let me trim the beginning and end of the sermons, before I asked Switch to convert them to mono for me.

 

What I found was that after I made my destructive edits, and clicked "Save", WavePad was also converting the stereo file to a mono file! With *no* undo! I know this, because according to Windows Explorer, the file size has been cut in half. I discovered that if I told Switch to save a stereo file, then WavePad would follow suit (save a stereo file). This must be a bug, because post-save, WavePad tells me I still have a stereo file, which is not true.

 

I've only tried this with WAVE files. But WAVE is native to Windows, the simplest audio file to Windows, and you'd think it'd be free of these types of problems.

 

I acknowledge that this is a very specific set of circumstances that lead to this bug, but it's a fairly dangerous bug for those of us spending hours on our beloved audio, only to have half of it discarded without being asked. :-)

 

Can anyone duplicate this bug? Can it be fixed?

 

Thanks for your time (anyone). -- iJW