You have one mic, plugged into a mono recording input and you are recording into a stereo track. You need to change the track you are recording into a mono track.

i've tried that. but when i play it back it only comes out of the left side. could it be my mic?

Even if it's a stereo mic, if you record into a mono track you will get mono. Is the track panned down the center? 0 pan?

Can you import a known working stereo track into audacity and test if it works when you set it to mono, stereo and mess with the panning?

well im trying to record the guitar tracks in mono and pan them like.. -50, 50 or so. but when i move the one to the right side it's almost entirely inaudible

One of your many possible problems could be the 1/8" jack.
Usually these stereo jacks are looking for a stereo input.
Make sure it's a true mono to stereo conversion. In which case the mono gtr would be sent to both tip and ring of the 1/8" plug. This would then get recorded to 2 tracks (or a stereo track)
If you've plugged in a mono 1/4" plug into a jack looking for stereo, you would be shorting the ring (left side) to ground and you'll lose half of your signal.

dnedzesk wrote: i've tried that. but when i play it back it only comes out of the left side. could it be my mic?

What exactly did you do? ...because that should have worked.

And what input did you use? Was it a MIC input (which is mono) or a LINE input (which is stereo)?

problem solved, thank you very much. i'm not sure what the problem was in audacity but i tried it in mixcraft and it worked.

Usually when this happens to me it is chalked up to a loose nut on the keyboard.

I blame Audacity.

Its always operator error. They're probably listening to 2 channels of mono and think it's stereo now. And yeah, microphone inputs on 1/8" jacks are generally TRS so that the ring carries some DC to power multimedia headstone microphones. So not stereo but 3 connections.

In this is precisely why you should purchase an inexpensive USB 1.1 audio device at your local music store. For around $100 you get something that is entry-level semi-professional. You need more than just a toy. You need a specialized interface for specialized production purposes. It's not an option. It's an adventure.

Lots of options but no cash
Ms. Remy Ann David