# Is there a field for channel modes?
**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/is-there-a-field-for-channel-modes/66400
**Category:** Support
**Created:** [November 2, 2024, 5:57am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/is-there-a-field-for-channel-modes/66400 "2024-11-02T05:57:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@pwallin](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/pwallin)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2024, 5:57am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/is-there-a-field-for-channel-modes/66400/1 "2024-11-02T05:57:00Z")
Hi,
I can add a "mode" information field to the view columns, but it seems that is just a 2 for stereo and a 1 for mono.
How can i distinguish between "Joint Stereo", "Stereo", "Dual Channel Mono", and "Single Channel Mono". Is there a field for that?
Thanks, Paul
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### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2024, 6:42am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/is-there-a-field-for-channel-modes/66400/2 "2024-11-02T06:42:05Z")
Do you have files for which you know that they are in
> [@pwallin](#):
>
> "Joint Stereo", "Stereo", "Dual Channel Mono", and "Single Channel Mono"
I have checked my collection and find stereo, joint stereo, single channel - so I would say that %\_mode% caters for that, provided the encoder has supplied that information.
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### Author:  [@pwallin](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/pwallin)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2024, 7:02am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/is-there-a-field-for-channel-modes/66400/3 "2024-11-02T07:02:58Z")
Thanks for that prompt response.
I've just noticed that i do get "Joint Stereo", etc. for mp3 file, but some of my files are m4b files and they only give a numeric value of 1 or 2.
i guess m4b is the issue. maybe that's not likely to be resolvable?
Thanks, again
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### Author:  [@ohrenkino](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/ohrenkino)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2024, 7:27am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/is-there-a-field-for-channel-modes/66400/4 "2024-11-02T07:27:03Z")
> [@pwallin](#):
>
> i guess m4b is the issue
Exactly. Depending on the format, the information has more or fewer details or none at all.
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### Author:  [@AreDigg](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/AreDigg)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2024, 11:47am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/is-there-a-field-for-channel-modes/66400/5 "2024-11-02T11:47:40Z")
> [@pwallin](#):
>
> i guess m4b is the issue. maybe that's not likely to be resolvable?
For AAC audio "joint stereo" is applied at codec level, in the sense that the benefit that M-S encoding provides to saving bits is part of it. If other bitrate saving techniques are used on channel level then it is an HE-AAC file.
MPEG4 format don’t distinguish between Dual Mono and Normal Stereo, although AAC on frame level can do two single channels instead of paired channels. The reason is that in the MPEG4 format expects that you use different streams of audio instead of hacking the channel configuration.
But I think that some Japanese companies for backward compatible reason use channel configuration 0 to indicate dual mono.
My guess is what MP3tag shows, is the channel configuration ID, (0 is decide by stream object, 1 is mono, 2 stereo, 3 is stereo plus center, etc)
It could be interesting to check the various apps that creates MPEG4 containers, if they use 0 or 2 when adding a MP3 with Dual Mono.
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### Author:  [@system](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/system)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2024, 11:48am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/is-there-a-field-for-channel-modes/66400/6 "2024-12-02T11:48:08Z")
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