Recording in Mono, can only hear left channel

I recently bought a used PowerBook with GarageBand 08 installed. I rigged a 1/4" input with an 1/8" adapter and ran it from my guitar's output into the audio line-in on my PowerBook and set Garage band to record mono. Every time I try to do it I can only hear out of the left headphone. Why is this happening?! Anyone?

-R

Hi Rybear,

& welcome to the forums :-)

Have you got any stereo effects on the audio track (in GB)?

Thanks
Rounik

Hi Rybear,

Left Channel is the default Mono setting. If you add a stereo effect; eg, reverb, echo, delay, etc,,, you should hear stereo.

Hope this helps,

Bj

[quote:26194]Hi Rybear,

Left Channel is the default Mono setting. If you add a stereo effect; eg, reverb, echo, delay, etc,,, you should hear stereo.

Hope this helps,

Bj

Good point! Thanks Bj!

Cheers,
Rounik

Always a pleasure Rounik... : )

Cheers, Bj

Thanks for the replies! I'm a real space case sometimes. My audio output was just panned far left and I failed to check that sys pref tab. Oops. Thanks again.

-rybear

No Problems... Glad it's sorted...

Cheers, Bj

The only other thing I'd add to this is that you are plugging a guitar in to a line input so you might not get particularly good sound quality.

One the impedance won't match which will make the sound sound... thin and weak and two, the difference in audio levels between a guitar signal and line level signal are quite significant so you'll probably be finding yourself boosting the hell out of it just to be able to hear it.

If you don't want to invest in a soundcard to give you a proper guitar input, M-Audio do something called a Jam Lab which is a USB guitar input. It's still quite expensive for what it is so I tend to recommend to people that they get a budget sound card like the M-Audio solo or something like that. At least then you can put your sounds through decent speakers??

Thought it worth a mention :)

Cheers,

j

New at this but using a impedance DI box is the way i had to go. Not until I hooked one up to my firewire mixer to try to record guitar, my levels had to be way to high. Unlike a mic in a mixer, that most of the time you have to have a lot lower. I am using a older guitar from the 50's so i don't think it was that but just the impedance. By the way got one at a pawn shop for $20. hope that will help.