Stereo recording problems

[Ezza]

basically i'm trying to transfer a recording from my dictaphone to my
PC using the line ine port. But whenever i do the right channel is
always poor on play back the sound is hardly viisble making play back
seem like mono. I've tried recording in mono but the recording then
doesnt play back i've also tried encoding it in stereo again but no
luck??
any ideas thanks? :)

[Ethan Winer]

Ezza,

It sounds like you're using a mono plug to connect to the sound card. All
sound cards that use 1/8th inch connecters are stereo. So it sounds like you
need to use a different cable, or an adapter.

Is a Dictaphone even a stereo device?

--Ethan

[William Sommerwerck]

I've never heard of a stereo dictating machine (except the Sony NT-1).

The right channel isn't down -- it isn't there at all. Ethan Winer's analysis is
correct. If you want to record on both channels, you a need a cable that splits
the mono output of your dictating machine to the left and right inputs of the
card.

[Mike Rivers]

In article > "Ethan Winer" <ethanw at ethanwiner dot com> writes:

> It sounds like you're using a mono plug to connect to the sound card. All
> sound cards that use 1/8th inch connecters are stereo. So it sounds like you
> need to use a different cable, or an adapter.

Your analysis is probably correct, but not all 1/8" phone jacks on
sound cards are stereo. A number of them have a stereo jack for line
inputs and a mono jack for the mic. Those are the cards that are there
primarily for playback but they concede to having a mic input for
Internet telephone and voice-to-text applications. If they had a
stereo mic input, people would wonder what's wrong when they plug in a
mono mic and record on only one chanel.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

[Judy and Karl]

......and why waste the disk space for what would be dual-mono??

"William Sommerwerck" > wrote in message
...
> I've never heard of a stereo dictating machine (except the Sony NT-1).
>
> The right channel isn't down -- it isn't there at all. Ethan Winer's
analysis is
> correct. If you want to record on both channels, you a need a cable that
splits
> the mono output of your dictating machine to the left and right inputs of
the
> card.
>

[Ezza]

The headphones that were supplied with the dictaphone play back in
stereo but when i use the ones from my minidisk player it plays back
the same way as when the recording is on my pc (the right channel is
barely audioable)
Is there a way i could record in mono then onvert to stereo?? (i've
tried this before but anyone got any ideas??)

Thanks for the replies too.

[Ethan Winer]

Mike,

> not all 1/8" phone jacks on sound cards are stereo. <

Good point, thanks.

I should have known that about mike inputs. I admit I have NEVER ONCE used
the mike input on any sound card in all the years I've had computers!

--Ethan

[S O'Neill]

Ezza wrote:

> The headphones that were supplied with the dictaphone play back in
> stereo but when i use the ones from my minidisk player it plays back
> the same way as when the recording is on my pc (the right channel is
> barely audioable)
> Is there a way i could record in mono then onvert to stereo?? (i've
> tried this before but anyone got any ideas??)
>
> Thanks for the replies too.

That's not stereo, that's the same signal into both ears, ie, mono.
You've confirmed that by using stereo phones and only hearing one
signal. Look at the plugs on the two headphones, one has two contact
parts (tip and sleeve) and one has three (tip, ring, and sleeve). The
Dictaphone pair has the tip internally connected to both ears, the MD
has each ear brought out to tip (left) and ring (right). Sleeve
connects to both. When you plug in the MD pair, only the tip and
sleeve, not the ring, make contact.

What software are you using to record in stereo? To make the mono
channel stereo, you would typically either zero the quiet channel then
mix both together, making two copies of the same thing; OR select-all
and copy (Ctrl+C) the desired channel then select-all and paste over the
quiet one. Or maybe your software works differently.

Or get an adaptor to plug into a TS mini-phone and accept a TRS
mini-phone. I have one, so I know they're available, but they are hard
to find and the software solution would be 3-dB quieter (not important
on a Dictaphone).

[Mike Rivers]

In article > "Ethan Winer" <ethanw at ethanwiner dot com> writes:

> I should have known that about mike inputs. I admit I have NEVER ONCE used
> the mike input on any sound card in all the years I've had computers!

Neither have I. Everything I know about sound card mic inputs I
learned right here on r.a.p. I did once use the built-in mic on the
laptop computer to see if a program was working when I didn't feel
like going into another room to dig up a mini plug line input cable.

Speaking of laptops and built-in microphones, a friend came to visit
with a Sony Vaio laptop and said that it seemed to be "alive with
sound" all the time. I figured that the built-in mic was turned on and
was routed to the speakers through the input monitor. You could tap on
the case in the vicinity of the the mic and hear it on the built-in
speakers. I looked at the mixer control panel and the mic input was
muted and the fader was all the way down. I couldn't find anything
else that might have turned it off. Sticking a plug in the external
mic jack did the job, so I modified one (cut off the "insides") so it
wouldn't snag on the case and she just left it plugged in until she
got rid of the computer a year later.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

[dt king]

"Mike Rivers" > wrote in message
news:znr1069867400k@trad...
>
> else that might have turned it off. Sticking a plug in the external
> mic jack did the job, so I modified one (cut off the "insides") so it
> wouldn't snag on the case and she just left it plugged in until she
> got rid of the computer a year later.

I did the same thing last week to turn a cheap casio keyboard into a midi
controller -- a quarter inch plug in the headphone jack disables internal
sound so I don't have to adjust it every time I turn it on.

dtk

[Ethan Winer]

Mike,

> Everything I know about sound card mic inputs I learned right here on
r.a.p. <

Can I quote you on that? :->)

> tap on the case ... mic input was muted and the fader was all the way
down. <

Man, that's so lame I don't know where to start!

--Ethan