Interference/Noise on Instrument Tracks! Do I Need a Power Conditioner, or... ?

[Obese Chess]

Hi Folks,

I've posted a bit about this issue before but I'm still trying to get to the bottom of it.

I am currently upgrading my entire setup - I've gone from recording on my old gaming PC to recording with a Mac Mini (haven't set it up yet). Everywhere I have lived, I have gotten tons of interference when recording with this PC. I imagine the RGB fans and other adjacent garbage aren't helping matters, but I want it to be as clean as possible. I currently live in a one bedroom apartment built in the eighties. I cannot imagine that it was constructed with high-quality isolated circuits, if that's even the issue.

When I say interference, I mean that there is noise - high pitched electrical whining, static, crackling, etc - in my tracks. The higher I turn the input gain up, the more there is. This can be gated if I use a noise gate, either physical or plugin, but the actual recording itself - ie everything that gets past the gate - still has that interference. It gets worse if I add distortion or other effects, whether I do that manually with a pedal or with plugins. It happens on every instrument I own, even meticulously-shielded custom instruments.

Perhaps of note, it does NOT happen when recording vocals through a condenser microphone no matter how high I turn the input gain up. I have no problems when listening to loud music on any other device in the apartment, and I don't recall the last time I got interference through the speakers, though now I'm scratching my head and might try diming the volume when I get home.

So, right now I have everything plugged into a standard surge protector.

Will plugging into something with RF/EM shielding like the Furman SS6B help matters?

Or do I need to bite the bullet and spend a lot more on something like the the Black Lion PG-P?

OR: am I describing an entirely different problem that has to be solved in a different way?

Thanks!

 

[bholder]

Lots of these threads lately, for sure. I'm subscribing to every one of them in the hopes of some day finding an answer that solves my buzzes and hums for good. A breaker board overhaul greatly improved things, but only for certain instruments. Others are a buzzy as before.

Beware, there is a lot of "snake oil" marketing in this space...

 

[Obese Chess]

Yeah, about a year ago I posted a few sound clips and people were like "I don't hear anything, that's just normal recording noise." But I DO. I do hear it. I just don't know where it's coming from, so I can't fix it.

 

[seamonkey]

Check the shielding on your bass.
There is newer type of conductive copper tape where the adhesive is conductive.
It makes shielding the control compartment easy.
Conductive Copper Tape - StewMac

And power conditioners are a scam.

 

[ddnidd1]

You have an old PC with what interface?

 

[silky smoove]

Please post a current recording that you feel is representative of the noise issue you’re hearing. It’s impossible to diagnose without knowing what is happening.

 

[Obese Chess]

Check the shielding on your bass.
There is newer type of conductive copper tape where the adhesive is conductive.
It makes shielding the control compartment easy.
Conductive Copper Tape - StewMac

And power conditioners are a scam.

Most of my basses are shielded - in two cases absolutely meticulously as they are higher end instruments - but the noise is exactly the same whether I'm using one of those nice basses or the cheap plywood j-bass copy I found on the sidewalk a few months ago.

I am also using shielded Mogami cables/plugs so I don't think the issue is there, either.

You have an old PC with what interface?

Audient iD4, though it was present on my old Focusrite Scarlett 2.

Please post a current recording that you feel is representative of the noise issue you’re hearing. It’s impossible to diagnose without knowing what is happening.

Will do this when I get home. I thought I'd posted them quite a while ago but they appear to have been lost to the ages.

 

[Hasty]

Maybe I missed it, but are you recording into a DAW? If so which one and might be helpful to describe your signal path from instrument to DAW. I currently use Reaper and I've learned that one of the known issues with Reaper is unwanted noise if you have too many VST's or in system effects going at once or possibly in a certain order. To my knowledge there's no known fix yet.

Also, if you're moving to a Mac Mini for recording... are you chasing this noise down for a sense of personal satisfaction of a job well done? I would just hook up the Mac and see where that takes me and not worry about the older device that is being replaced.

 

[Obese Chess]

Maybe I missed it, but are you recording into a DAW? If so which one and might be helpful to describe your signal path from instrument to DAW. I currently use Reaper and I've learned that one of the known issues with Reaper is unwanted noise if you have too many VST's or in system effects going at once or possibly in a certain order. To my knowledge there's no known fix yet.

Also, if you're moving to a Mac Mini for recording... are you chasing this noise down for a sense of personal satisfaction of a job well done? I would just hook up the Mac and see where that takes me and not worry about the older device that is being replaced.

I'm chasing it down because I don't want to have to dick around with getting another surge protector down the road, basically - I'd rather have everything I need done in one go rather than disconnecting/unplugging stuff, moving the desk away from the wall, etc etc.

I am running this into Reaper but the following is with no VSTs at all - VSTs do make it worse. I will be moving over to Logic when I get the Mac Mini set up.

That is assuming that the noise I am hearing during recording is, in fact, caused by dirty power and not the computer, though in listening to everything and having recorded this little demo as per @silky smoove 's request I think it's the computer so I probably won't worry about it.

This is my best shielded bass direct into the DAW. Running it through my pedalboard, which I like to do because I have a compressor and low pass filter, introduces more noise, but only slightly. This is not me playing, this is just the raw signal with the bass plugged in as soon as I hit "record." This is the least bad it ever gets. The reason I say it might be the computer is because the noise changes when I move the mouse around or click on stuff. But, again, this is the LEAST bad it ever is, running it through pedals or heavily distorted VSTs usually makes it worse (though my pedalboard is at the rehearsal space right now).

 

[seamonkey]

If it happens when you move the mouse and click on things, then it could be interference from the monitor. Try turning off the monitor and moving the mouse around and see if it still makes noise.
You can remote desktop into the PC with a phone or tablet without the monitor turned on and move the mouse around and click on things, on what would be the screen but is now remote, and see if the noise still moves with the remote mouse movement. If it does, then it could from on the video board, since it still sends a signal out even with the monitor turned off.

 

[Katoosie]

I have quite a lot of experience with that kinda thing so I will try to walk you thru this a bit later, once I have the time for it.

Currently living at a place with dirty power and I cannot use amps etc without it leaking a ton of noise with our my signal. But I solved it.

I will get back to you a bit later when I have the time.

 

[yberwaffe]

I'm chasing it down because I don't want to have to dick around with getting another surge protector down the road, basically - I'd rather have everything I need done in one go rather than disconnecting/unplugging stuff, moving the desk away from the wall, etc etc.

A surge protector is useless unless you get a direct hit from lightning.

The source of the problem might be crap on the power earth wire.
Try running everything without the earth connected and redo the test.

 

[themickster]

Hi Folks,

I've posted a bit about this issue before but I'm still trying to get to the bottom of it.

I am currently upgrading my entire setup - I've gone from recording on my old gaming PC to recording with a Mac Mini (haven't set it up yet). Everywhere I have lived, I have gotten tons of interference when recording with this PC. I imagine the RGB fans and other adjacent garbage aren't helping matters, but I want it to be as clean as possible. I currently live in a one bedroom apartment built in the eighties. I cannot imagine that it was constructed with high-quality isolated circuits, if that's even the issue.

When I say interference, I mean that there is noise - high pitched electrical whining, static, crackling, etc - in my tracks. The higher I turn the input gain up, the more there is. This can be gated if I use a noise gate, either physical or plugin, but the actual recording itself - ie everything that gets past the gate - still has that interference. It gets worse if I add distortion or other effects, whether I do that manually with a pedal or with plugins. It happens on every instrument I own, even meticulously-shielded custom instruments.

Perhaps of note, it does NOT happen when recording vocals through a condenser microphone no matter how high I turn the input gain up. I have no problems when listening to loud music on any other device in the apartment, and I don't recall the last time I got interference through the speakers, though now I'm scratching my head and might try diming the volume when I get home.

So, right now I have everything plugged into a standard surge protector.

Will plugging into something with RF/EM shielding like the Furman SS6B help matters?

Or do I need to bite the bullet and spend a lot more on something like the the Black Lion PG-P?

OR: am I describing an entirely different problem that has to be solved in a different way?

Thanks!

Have you tried anything we told you in your last thread?

 

[Deleted member 368008]

high pitched electrical whining, static, crackling, etc - in my tracks. The higher I turn the input gain up, the more there is. This can be gated if I use a noise gate, either physical or plugin, but the actual recording itself - ie everything that gets past the gate - still has that interference. It gets worse if I add distortion or other effects, whether I do that manually with a pedal or with plugins. It happens on every instrument I own, even meticulously-shielded custom instruments.

Heterodyning on pedals, and effects. Read on about that, there's plenty of topics. Outdoor cell phone repeater masts on roofs on the buildings in the hood. Strymon pedals are notorious for producing heterodyning or picking it up down the signal chain. Basically heterodyning is when som AD converter picks up higher frequencies that we can hear. Due to the pristine quality of the AD converter. Now, if something is placed before, and the pedal is like a digital pitch shifter, octave pedal, or shimmer effects, it takes that high frequencies over 20K that we cannot hear down to the hearing range. It can be a truckload of causes for that. USB cables, RF/EMF intermittent interference, poor single coil pickups in both bass and guitars, and very poor power supply boxes with switched power inside, mixed with old style "analog" or torrodial transformer style. Mixing analog pedals with digital pedals to the same power supply. Power supply just running at the edge of what it is capable of, like if limit is total 1000 mA you run every effect to - say - 999 mA and so on.

Gain structure on your signal chain. Mixing +4db input with -10db input (professional and consumer level) is a pandoras box you open, and of course all copper shielding inside guitars. Added on top of everything mentioned above. It's a major chore to error check this. Start with as little as possible and then add to your chain, sooner or later you will find the culprit. If not...it's...

 

[SteveCS]

I'm chasing it down because I don't want to have to dick around with getting another surge protector down the road, basically - I'd rather have everything I need done in one go rather than disconnecting/unplugging stuff, moving the desk away from the wall, etc etc.

I am running this into Reaper but the following is with no VSTs at all - VSTs do make it worse. I will be moving over to Logic when I get the Mac Mini set up.

That is assuming that the noise I am hearing during recording is, in fact, caused by dirty power and not the computer, though in listening to everything and having recorded this little demo as per @silky smoove 's request I think it's the computer so I probably won't worry about it.

This is my best shielded bass direct into the DAW. Running it through my pedalboard, which I like to do because I have a compressor and low pass filter, introduces more noise, but only slightly. This is not me playing, this is just the raw signal with the bass plugged in as soon as I hit "record." This is the least bad it ever gets. The reason I say it might be the computer is because the noise changes when I move the mouse around or click on stuff. But, again, this is the LEAST bad it ever is, running it through pedals or heavily distorted VSTs usually makes it worse (though my pedalboard is at the rehearsal space right now).

Sounds EXACTLY like the kind of noise I used to get running multiple digital/DSP pedals from cheap daisy-chained 9V adapters that were not really capable of delivering the required current. Right now my pedal-board 'rule' is that digital/DSP-based pedals get a dedicated high quality high current supply and the daisy-chained power is only then used for low current analogue pedals. This does not necessarily mean that digital and analogue cannot be daisy-chained, but on any one power line there can only ever be one digital/high-current/DSP-based pedal. Since hooking up that way I have not had any noise issues of that type. I have also installed ferrite line filters/chokes on the supply lines. You don't cut the cable, simply clip into a loop close to the pedal:

 

[Deleted member 368008]

Oh, btw power conditioners does nothing for this. In this particular case, they're a scam. It's in the air and other things down the signal chain but power grid. However, if you live in a power grid dodgy area, one of those Voltage Regulatore (Furman etc) might help somewhat, they contains conditioners too. But they are expensive as ****. More trouble and price than it is worth. POwer conditioners does nothing for EMF/RF interference at all.

 

[SteveCS]

Oh, btw power conditioners does nothing for this. In this particular case, they're a scam. It's in the air and other things down the signal chain but power grid. However, if you live in a power grid dodgy area, one of those Voltage Regulatore (Furman etc) might help somewhat, they contains conditioners too. But they are expensive as ****. More trouble and price than it is worth. POwer conditioners does nothing for EMF/RF interference at all.

Indeed - IME most of the noise of the type in that clip is inserted 'downstream' of the transformer/regulator/SMPS, by the SMPS itself or by some odd interaction of high-demand digital loads on common supply lines. Way beyond the reach of the power conditioner.

 

[Aloe]

The reason I say it might be the computer is because the noise changes when I move the mouse around or click on stuff.

just to double-check: when you move the mouse, you don't take both hands off your strings, right? and run two pickups on full? if anything here is 'no', expect some noise

Audient iD4, though it was present on my old Focusrite Scarlett 2.

those two are bus-powered interfaces, bus power is a common source of noise, especially when used with usb3 ports on your computer. a ferrite bead on the wire between the computer and audio interface might help. but it's better to avoid bus-powered interfaces.

 

[Jogobass]

In my case, when I sit too close to my computer monitor, my bass picks up this high frequency noise. But it goes away when I move further away from the monitor.

 

[FatBoutedGirls]

Sounds like some of that could be cellphone interference, had to teach the kid not to put his phone on the amp last week because of noise just like that.