Keyboard through snake injecting noise

[Marley's Ghost]

At our last show we used our new Carvin 16/8 snake for the first time with the keys. The Yamaha keyboard only has 1/4 out, so we used a 1/4 - XLR adapter. No matter what we tried (even routing through a sonic maximizer) we could not get rid of the hum. Short of a long 1/4 in run, any suggestions on how to fix this?

 

[projectMalamute]

Use a passive direct box to balance the signal and lift the ground.

 

[T-Bird]

Hi.

Use a passive direct box to balance the signal and lift the ground.

^This.

I would never dream of using a 1/4 TS on a snake for any other than speaker level signal.

Regards
Sam

 

[ggunn]

At our last show we used our new Carvin 16/8 snake for the first time with the keys. The Yamaha keyboard only has 1/4 out, so we used a 1/4 - XLR adapter. No matter what we tried (even routing through a sonic maximizer) we could not get rid of the hum. Short of a long 1/4 in run, any suggestions on how to fix this?

Was it just an adapter or did it have a transformer? If it's the transformer type, it converts unbalanced to balanced and the shield is extraneous. You can use one of those shield breaking XLR adapters to lift the ground, or in a pinch you can just clip the shield on one of the connectors of a mic cable and put it in between the adapter and the snake.

Better yet, use a DI box with a ground lift (which does the same thing).

 

[TimmyP]

Get a Radial ProDI (or ProD2 if stereo), or an EWI from audiopile.net.