Tascam 688 Routing Screwed?

[michkid]

I just picked up a 688 from a friend of mine who hasn't touched it in about ten years. He said he remembered it "not working completely properly" when he put it in the basement years ago. I have read the manual and can't get it to record onto a track for the life of me!

I've got an ipod plugged into input 1. I can hear it through the headphones just fine. The meter for that track (or any others) will not light up to show level, but the signal is going to the monitor meters on the far right, because they are lighting up just fine. I'm trying to record track 1 in scene 1. That's it.

I've followed the manual step by step, and even reset the scenes back to the factory settings...no luck. Anybody had this happen before?

 

[michkid]

Also...I put a prerecorded cassette in the machine to see if the meters for all 8 channels are working...and they are.

After looking at all of the threads I found on here, I tried to create my own scenes (a few different varieties). Still nothing.

 

[heatmiser]

Bummer. This has not happened to me before, but I've never tried to record from an ipod.

I checked mine and scene 1 appears to default to mic input (the XLR input). I assume you're not running the ipod into an xlr input. If it is input via the line input, you would have to edit scene 1 to change the input from mic to line, or select another scene where it is already set up this way.

It is odd that it is coming through the monitor output though. That makes it seem as though the signal is at least recognized.

I dunno man, there is a steep learning curve with that machine and there have been countless times I thought I'd done every right yet no signal. Eventually I'd always find one button, fader or scene that I hadn't adjusted quite right and everything would work. Good luck!

 

[RAMI]

I'm not familiar with the 688, but I've owned the 788 and I now have the 2488. On those 2 machines, you won't see any levels on the channels unless you arm the tracks that the inputs are assigned to. You'll only see level if the tracks are recording or ready to record.I don't know if this helps, but hopefully it does.

 

[heatmiser]

That's a good point rami. I'm pretty sure the 688 is the same in that regard. If he has a signal coming into input 1 and all the faders are up and it's routed correctly, but track 1 isn't armed, he might see monitor output levels, but no reading on track/channel 1.

On the 688, he has to arm track one by pressing the "record function" button "1". It lights up red when armed.

Maybe nothing to this, but I wanted to affirm that I think it is a possible explanation.