424 MkIII Mixdown & Repair question:

[caprice]

for the repair:

The Left and Right RCA Monitor out's on the back of my 424 work, but they require jiggling because they are loose. If the recorder slides a bit on the table the right or left or both channels short and I lose sound. The trick i found is that if i let the cables hang off a table rather than them laying on a table both Left and Right work. I want to fix it though. I'm tempted to open it up and see why they are loose, my guess is loose screws holding into place the Left and Right female RCA sockets?

for mixdown:

I want to mixdown in stereo to my computer. I have a presonus firebox preamp. I'm pretty sure what I need is an RCA to 1/4" cable for each line out channel (Left and Right) for the Firebox which can take in two 1/4" line level inputs.

Does anyone have any better advice is what I'm asking.

Thanks

 

[Washburn100]

I just looked at the outputs you have:

Outputs
Monitor Outputs: RCA unbalanced
Line Output: RCA unbalanced
Aux Send Outs: (2) 1/4 in. Line
Individual Track Outs: RCA unbalanced
Headphone Output: 1/4 in. TRS

Looks like your idea of rca to 1/4" should work fine, but keep the runs short because they are unbalanced and could get noisy the longer the cables.

As for the short, looks like you will have to open her up and see if something is loose, bad solder joint etc. I wonder what is the difference between the monitor outputs and the line outputs. Other than maybe signal level, you may just be able to use those instead.
Good luck

 

[caprice]

Awesome! Thank you so much! I plan on going to Radioshack to pick up the shight I need to perform some surgery.

 

[caprice]

I went to radioshack and they only had the adapters to make my Dual RCA cable into a Dual 1/4" to Dual RCA cable. I mixed down in stereo from the 3 and 4 inputs in Garageband.

Let me just say, despite the "ghetto" rig with the cables (I would have preferred, probably will, to get a really nice set of Dual RCA male to Dual male 1/4". They can be had online for under $10). The quality though is great. I mixed down first to stereo in my home stereo and the loss of quality was phenomenal. But through the Firebox, despite the cables, the sound is really, really good. BTW, the cables I used are 6FT long and I still got a great sound, I would have preferred a 3FT set but again, I didn't want to wait. Besides, the adapters at radioshack were like $6.
I'll get back to this after I make the repair to the RCA sockets on the back of the 424, they're working fine right now but still short here and there.

cheers