Balancing Monitoring Using A 410, Firewire 410, G4 iMac, Stereo not Mono Options

[sethjacquay]

hi, just purchased a M-Audio Firewire 410, everything seems to be working properly, but

when I monitor the input using Soundtrack 1.2 or Ableton Live 3.0.2 it is only is coming in on
one ear (mono) and when writing the input to a track it only records one side of the input which
ever channel it is on.

Question #1: Is this what is meant by Unbalanced Inputs? Or is something wrong with the unit?

Question #2: If this is unbalanced input how do I setup the control panel to do stereo recording in either of these programs?

I am guessing this is normal for the unit, as I am new to home studio setup and what not.
Other than that the device appears to work properly, very low latency, no latency stereo direct hardware monitoring, and clean sound.

It is funny though, using Soundtrack and Live 3 the sound is recorded in stereo but only on one side, but Apple's GarageBand allows you to select only one channel and to make it mono. Thus
allowing for the monitoring to be in Stereo.

Thanks for any advice, much appreciated.
Seth

This post has been edited by sethjacquay: Fri 6 Feb 2004, 19:50

[sethjacquay]

It doesn't seem that anyone knows the answer to this question, so
after playing with Live 3.0.2 a little. It appears that you can
correct the input by simply applying a Utilty Effect in Live 3.0.2 and
selecting input (either L or R). This corrects the mono issue and
makes the track stereo also this allows to apply some gain.

In Soundtrack the only solution seems to be to correct the
Pan manually by setting the track that is mono to 50 %
toward whatever channel it is coming in on.

The Firewire 410 is an alright unit.
It isn't perfect, but I have only had it for 24 hrs, so I am still
in the learning phases.
Also, I purchased a Behringer B-1 Microphone, and so
far I am very impressed with the quality for a $99 mic.

[sethjacquay]

I can see this is quite the hot topic, as only I have posted replies.

At any rate, for those who are interested, I recently talked to a
very reliable source of information. He explained to me that
the Microphone is a mono instrument and that it makes sense
that i am only hearing it in one ear.

If I wanted to hear it in stereo, he added, I need to define the recording
track as a mono track, and conversely if I want to record in stereo then
I need to connect two microphones or purchase a stereo microphone.

Now that I am in the know, it appears that my Firewire 410 is working properly.

Now can someone tell me how to create a mono input in Live 3 or is this the
same as the utilty feature as I described in the above post.