Tape recording in mono?

[Rayne]

OK: I've done ahandful of recordings.. and they are getting progressivly better and better...(which I liek more than them getting worse and worse) know what I mean?... well I just did one, and it's nice I liek it alot better than all the rest. But when I go to listen to it trhough a stereo... (cassette tape) it's only comming out of one speaker. (which I dont' liek!) I tried it on a different stereo, and had the same problem... I had just figured that one of teh RCA jacks wasn't in all the way... but I turned it around to the B side to listen to a mix I did ther eyesterday:.. and there was the same thing wrong.... what's happening? and Is there a way I can fix it??? Thanks alot!

 

[theblue1]

I don't think there's anything tricky here. If you were supplying a signal on both sides and the cassette was working right you should have ended up with a signal on both sides.

A quick check to help isolate your problem is to reverse the left and right input cabling, record and see if that produces a switch in the recorded cassette. If it's the same side missing even after you switch the inputs that seems to indicate that the problem is inside the cassette machine... but if the missing side switches it would indicate that the one side is missing as far back as the input cable and the problem could be the cable or the source (your mixer, keyboard, etc).

You could try swapping out the cable and see if that works -- or doing the reverse thing at the output of your source device to see if the missing channel switches. (This is also good logical thinking practice as you suss your problem. The diagnostic techniques you perfect here will serve you well through your recording career.)

Good luck.