Help with playback problem - audio from only one speaker

[Sydney]

I'm suddenly having a problem that I did not have before: when I record from my keyboard into cakewalk, the recording itself seems perfectly fine, but the audio is only coming out of one speaker.

My other recordings are playing fine out of both speakers, so it's not the speaker.

I've tried recording with two different keyboards, and it does the same thing, so it's not that.

The recording itself seems fine too because in the console view, everything seems pretty much normal. EXCEPT, when I play back the recording, in the console view, where there are two bars that represent the playback sound, only one bar rises. And I only hear audio from one speaker.

Like I said, I never had this problem before. Can someone help me troubleshoot this? Is there some sort of setting in Cakewalk, or in Soundblaster, or in my computer that got screwed up? I recently have been messing around with some of my computer settings, so I'm thinking it might be that.

Thanks,

[dachay2tnr]

[discalimer]I don't work with keyboards, so this is just a guess.[/disclaimer]

Isn't the output of most keyboards stereo? Perhaps in the cabling from the keyboard to your sound card you are adapting a stereo connection to a mono adapter and therefore only getting a signal from the left (or right) channel.

Along the same lines, are you perhaps selecting a stereo source as your input in Sonar/Cakewalk but only feeding it a mono signal. In that case you will only record on the left channel (and therefore only get sound from one speaker).

In either case, I think you can fix it by simply selecting your sound card's left input as the track input source.

[SPINSTERWUN]

I agree with dachay2tnr's answer.

also...

If, worse comes to worst, you could also, convert your MONO file into a STEREO file in your EDITOR program

[Sydney]

I appreciate the replies, but I think it's something else. I have been selecting the sound card's left input as the track input source.

Like I said, I wasn't having this problem before at all. My other recordings are fine. I think it has something to do with a problem in the playback rather than the recording, due to a setting either in the software, the soundcard, or my computer's operating system. Any other ideas?

Thanks

[Paul881]

Are you sure your jack connections are made well? Push em right in. Could be a stereo jack not pushed home.

Have you panned full left/right? Have you set the record/playback balance in microsoft mixer full left/right?

Have you set the record/playback balance in the s/b mixer full left/right?

Can't think of anything else. Apart from dodgy cables/connectors.

[Sydney]

Thanks for the additonal ideas, but I've tried all those again and again, to the best of my knowledge.

One very interesting thing that I discovered - when my keyboard is playing back a song, when the Soundblaster Live Drive dial is set to Line In2/Mic In2 (turned to the far left), I hear audio from just my left speaker, but when I set the dial to Mic (turned to the far right), I hear audio from both speakers! So I guess it has something to do with the Line In2/ Mic In2 playback.

Am I doing something terribly wrong here? I just don't understand why I am having this problem now when I wasn't before. It's getting fricken frustrating.

Any more help please?

[Sydney]

Somehow I got the thing fixed. I was fooling around with the Soundblaster Mixer. Something didn't look right so I tried a bunch of different setting. I can't remember for sure what I did, but I think what happend is that something besides the Line2 / Mic2 was selected, so I selected Line2/ Mic2 for recording.

One interesting thing is that before I was able to hear the audio from the keyboard through my computer speakers when I was recording, and now I can't. Can anyone explain why this is?

Anyway, I appreciate all your help everyone. You guys rule.

[Paul881]

Glad to hear you fixed your problem.

The issue here is that the soundblaster has its own settings and so does microsoft. Two lots of mixers to set, and the microsoft set is arcane, the worst piece of coding that microsoft perpetuate through all the o/s's.

Not a single week goes by without someone asking about similar problems. And we've all been there, so it's not just you!

In response to your latest question, I would say that somewhere you have deselected your computer soundcard outputs when recording. Hard to say where, could be in either of the mixers or it could be in Sonar itself. Have a fertle about with the mixers and see if you can fix it.