left channel missing, only when recording

[dag nabbit]

hi paul....it could be my old dell laptop but files run through j river play fine. could be the cheapo rolls phono preamp or the old griffen powerwave that everything runs through, but playing records reveals two channels .the sound card is properly set to 2channel 16/44.  so it's only when i hit the record button that the left channel disappears......any thoughts?  dag

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

Hi,

Are you recording via your line-in socket?  If so, the jack plug connection can give trouble so give it a good wiggle in the socket.

Whatever this is, I don't think it's software related.  You seem to have done the right things to eliminate that possibility.

[dag nabbit]

negative on the line in. 'table to preamp to the powerwave usb out to laptop.  are you a robot or do you just never leave the office.

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

Hi,

Well, if Windows' default recording format for the Powerwave is set to 2 channels in the Control Panel (are you on Windows?), that would eliminate the only software condition I know of which could cause this.  Other than that, it can only be the cabling into the device or a fault in the device itself.

Do you have another computer you can test with?  That might help narrow the problem down.

[dag nabbit]

it's a dell laptop w/win7 pro. I had been using a parasound zphono usb but experienced the left channel dropout with it so i switched to the rolls/griffen rig, and had no trouble for several months. i checked all cable connections and headshell leads before i started this post. I'm gonna try swapping out all cables with different ones. and while i also doubt a software issue, this old laptop most likely is feeling it's age and will turn out to be the problem, would reloading the software have any effect? i did download an update yesterday so it's all current. I never have tried the line-in approach, not sure how that affects signal quality.

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

Hi,

I doubt it's the fault of the laptop - the symptoms are too specific for that, and, no, reloading VinylStudio won't help at all.

It's certainly worth trying to record via line-in.  Just watch out for background noise, but a test recording will soon reveal that, if it is present.  Modern (and even not-quite-so-modern) built in sound cards are pretty good these days.