Thought I might save some time asking you guys before I go to the manual. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, when I play into audacity in stereo, the left side is about half the volume of the right, whether its RCA or headphone output.

no chance for panning...
(555 can pan samples but only with overdrive on it... wtf?!)

how's your output on headphones (without a pc in between)?
if you get a normal panning through cans then i'd say the wire isn't plugged in completly or maybe even damaged... Some 3,5mm plugs doesn't fit the small jacks because of the isolation of the plug - hope you know what i mean ..

Hate to say but a broken volume pot could cause sth similar - is it wobbling?!

it sounds fine through my headphones. volume pot? is that the knob? it doesn't wobble.

i'm pretty sure its not the wire because I've wired it various ways with the same result. I think my SP is fucked up. its not that big of a deal though, because I still have my old SP, and although the buttons are extremely numb, it still plays into the computer normally, so I can do work with the new one and upload with the old.

thanks anyway

???
If you got good stereo through headphones - then your sp headphone-out is fine... If you are using a wire on the headphone out and it's giving you weird stereo how can you think that it's the sp?

Did you ever checked the stereo on the RCA OUTs without a computer?
(Using an dapter and headphones or a stereo system...)

Could be that a solder bubble from one of the RCA's broke up - that wouldn't effect the headphone out - a broken volume"knob" would do though

Your description of fine headphones but shitty wire-output doesn't sound logical to me yet - you gotta do more tests man - don't blame the SP first!
Considering your first description I'm sure the mistake is outside of the box - but how can I be precious sitting at the other side of the world anyway...

If your pads are down I always recommend replacing them - cost about 17€ (20$?) (email2roland) and it's easy to do... Feels like a new pair of shoes - def worth it!

pot is a potentiometer.. (in this case ) it changes the resistance (volume in this case)...

Yeah i'm not the most patient troubleshooter. this shit just confuses me so bad its hard to deal with it. Its kind of hard to tell if the headphones play evenly because my left ear hears better than my right, so when I put the headphones on normal it sounds even but when they're on backwards its uneven.
How's this for a mindfuck? When I play the RCA output into audacity on my laptop the levels are even. Problem with doing that is I must need a sound card because the quality is awful.
One would think that the problem then is at the library computer, yet my old SP plays even levels at the library.
I'm not giving up on figuring this out, but I better take a break before my head explodes.
I didn't know you could replace the pads that cheap. I will look into that for sure! It would be incredible to get my first SP back in action.

thanks again

my 404sx's right channel has slightly lower volume than the left.
maybe its your sp's outputz.. u can still balance that shit in audacity doe

Cool, i'll try that. thanks

Chopperman, are the levels between the channels better or worse depending on the volume knob's position? If so, I'd suggest reaching a point where the levels are pretty even, then holding cancel+start/end and using ctrl knob 3 to raise/lower your overall db output. You can boost it back up and maintain the balance. I resorted to doing this before I got around to soldering the knob.