Please help me with my noise problem!

[rlcramer]

Ok - so I'll be the first to admit that I don't know much about ground loops, rfi, 60 cycle hum, etc. I've always been the kind of guy who would simply plug into an amp and go.

Well, lately, every time I plug one of my guitars into my interface, my amp, my Axe-Fx - ANYTHING, I get this ridiculous hum / noise. I have no clue what it is. It may be something really stupid like "Dude, turn down the gain on your Axe-FX patch" but I'm posting here to get a more professional opinion. I've tried different guitars, different electrical outlets, different amps / preamps, computer on, computer off, LCD's off, LCD's on, etc. I can't even think of anything else to do to troubleshoot that I haven't already done.

Below is a recording of me plucking a string on my guitar, and the resuting noise. The chain is - guitar (in this case a Strat with EMG's - but the same noise happens on my Les Paul, and my SG) / axe-fx / MOTU 896HD. I toook out my power conditioner, shut off my monitors, turned off all the lights, etc. And the noise is still there. If any of you guys know what "type" of noise this is, and if you can recommend a way for me to eliminate it, I would be forever in your debt.

The noise that is driving me BATTY!

Bobby

 

[CarlBlomqvist]

Turn of your CTR monitor 60 hum

EDIT: Woops, just read your whole post. Sorry.
Try to change cable/room/house.

 

[Jinko17]

after all that i'd say the only reason it could possibly be is the cable. or the output jack in your guitars. or you angered Odin and this is your punishment.

 

[mick thompson]

swap to a balanced cable buddy! it will cut out some cable inductance. try this....get your regular cable when its plugged in and making shit loads of noise etc and grab the cable around the middle and start moving it around everything electrical you have near it.

wave it slowly in-front of your processor, printer everything - when you hear noise increase you know its cable inductance. you need to swap to better shielded cables and check which input is shielded too on your balanced cable.

try swapping your sockets in your house. you may be just on a dirty line creating lots of noise on your signal.

finally what country are you from so i can determine your voltage and htz

it it needs be you may have to isolate the dirty freq and eq it out although thats a last option because eq'ing or using a ground loop isolator always reduces your natural tone and you dont want to loose that.

for me it was a matter of changing every single cable i had (including fx loop) to a balanced set

listening to your recording it sounds like a cycle him, i had the same problem with my peavey head about a year ago.

 

[rlcramer]

Thanks for the help so far guys.

Mick - to answer your questions - I'm in the US. I haven't tried swapping every cable yet, so I'll start down that road today. Now this might sound like a dumb question, but are you suggesting that I replace every cable (guitar cables included) with balanced cables? I have no problem doing that, but I just wanted to make sure that this is what you were suggesting before I did anything.

And in case it helps - the noise gets MUCH worse when I hold my guitar with the pickups really close to my LCD monitors. The first time I tried that I said "OK - that's it. Shut off the monitors, problem solved!" Well, I shut off the monitors, and my computer as well, and the noise was still there. The LCD's made it worse, but turning them off didn't make it any better....

If I was just playing / practicing, I wouldn't really care, but it's KILLING my recording process lately. I have so much noise in my guitar tracks, that it takes me forever to edit them into something usable, and I never get them 100% correct.

Also - I checked every outlet in my studio (as well as my entire house) with a ground tester, and they all test perfectly clean. I do have a dimmer switch in my studio (I've heard these can cause problems) but I get the same noise when the lights are on or off (completely switched off, not just dimmed).

Bobby

 

[ahjteam]

do you get the same noise with laptop?

 

[rlcramer]

The noise is there even when everything else is turned off accept my audio interface and my axe-fx. During my last test, the computer was off completely and the noise was still the same.

Bobby

 

[mick thompson]

im pretty sure its just cable inductance then.

what im suggesting is you replace your guitar cables and fx loop cables with "planet waves" balanced shielded cables single or dual end shielded gold plated cables - its your call - changing cables might not work for you but i think it will...or at least it will remove a large amount of "shit" from your signal

the reason in most cases for cable inductance is when you bring your audio signal close to a large coil or electrical wire or a large transformer etc the transformer (on or off - - unless off for a long time) will create an electro magnetic field which will off set your audio signal in your cable creating a shitty noise in your signal.

by buying shielded cables you 1: reduce cable inductance at the mid section "generic" part of your cable - meaning the bulk of your cable will be shielded by using better quality materials to shield out electro magnetic interference - secondly by buying gold plated cables your going to reduce general cable noise because well everyone knows gold plated cables are better quality etc and they DO work - by using a balanced cable the secondary line within the cable takes the feedback loop of the cable inductance and ground loop noise, sends it back through the cable and cancels it out at the opposite polarity in most cases reducing cable noise.

thats what i learned in rock school in ireland (yup its an actual legit state college course i done - thats the name - i have certs to prove it - and no jack black wasn't there)

then i had to put it to use - i had cable inductance and ground loop problems with my peavey head - i went out and bought a ground loop isolator and well...lets just say its fine for a car radio with a ground loop problem but when it comes to getting a professional sound you DO NOT want a ground loop isolator in your cable path - it literally sucks the tone from your guitar - swapping all my guitar cables and fx loop cables to balanced cables have in id say 95-98% of the time given me a clean signal - cleaner then standard guitar cables even if there was no cable inductance.

as far as i remember if your on 120volt juice in the US your running on a 60Htz electrical cycle. your last option is yo grab a 31 band or 30 band rack unit (or virtual rack) and eq out the 60 cycle hum but by doing this your literally again doing "sort of" the job of a ground loop isolator and removing valuable guitar tone and dynamics from your signal.

so dont do it unless your desperate!

and else...eh - oh move your internet router away from your guitar cable and move your cordless phone away too - i've found there frequency's can effect signal quality within the line - last thing you want is a htz cycle noise in your cable when your mate calls your phone while your recording because well...you'd be back to square one.

that was fucking long - im going to sleep now!

if ya need any more help just pm me or something incase i forget to check back here because im half asleep at the moment and i might forget tomorrow

 

[bryan.batiste]

^^^^^^^^^^^^

yep what he said

 

[rlcramer]

Guys I really appreciate the help so far. I'm actually already using all planet waves cables, so I should be ok from that end. But I just thought of something. I have my rack sitting RIGHT next to a relatively cheap APC UPS. Do you think this could be the cause of all my woes? It's the only thing I haven't removed yet in my troubleshooting. I actually have 2 of them in my studio and ALL of my computer gear is connected to them (although none of my audio gear is actually plugged into either one). Now that I think about it, they are both really close to all of my audio cables and gear. I can't test it now because I'm on my way to work, but if any of you think this might be my issue, please let me know, since you might save me from jumping out of a f**king window today!

 

[rlcramer]

Also - is there a tester for cable inductance? If so, it might make sense for me to invest in one.

 

[mick thompson]

hey dude - i got your PM there, sorry about the late reply - i was out all day.

im not aware of any actual physical unit that can test for cable inductance so im not really going to answer that one because i honestly dont know. (only way i could think would be to run 2 electrical signals through 2 separate cables and measure the magnetic field accordingly to see how much displacement happens - i dont recommend you do that because if you bump up the volts and your copper wire cant take it you could end up with a useless burned out guitar cable ) like i said i tested my cables by waving them in front of what i know caused cable inductance (in unbalanced cables) prior to my swapping.

as for your UPS system again it could very well be causing that problem. 1 it could have a ground loop problem making a feedback loop along your electrical lines and causing a cycle hum in your sound. As well as that your UPS as far as i read manages your networks power distribution etc. any box that has a lot of electrical cables floating around - especially in your case being an actual power management system for high voltage AC currents can certainly create a cycle hum. again dont forget electricity creates a magnetic field around cables it flows through - if you have a lot of cables near each other thats a lot of magnetic fields in the same polarity which can cause a very large interference and give you a serious cable inductance problem.

again the best way to test this is plug in your guitar (set up everything for recording) and grab your guitar cable when its plugged it. hold it around the centre and create a half loop - now wave that loop within close proximity to your UPS system...AND the cables going into the UPS system. it could very well be you have a dodgy cable going into that UPS which is creating a heavily distorted field causing your interference.

again try that guitar cable test - the dirt and hum should get louder when you find the problem. then experiment. throw in a balanced (shielded) cable in instead of your unbalanced guitar cable and you should get a dirt reduction in your noise.

if i was living closer to you i'd pop over and i'd have your noise problem sorted out within an hour but well .... it would take a long ass time to get to your house at the moment on my current wallet's status!

anyway dont worry - we'll try to get to the bottom of it here

woo creepy! 777 posts! haha

 

[AudioPhile777]

woo creepy! 777 posts! haha

Its a good number.

 

[rlcramer]

Thanks for the help Mick - I owe you a beer...

I'll let you know what happens.

Bobby

 

[mick thompson]

cool bobby, do let me know whether good or bad news - if it fails and you dont find out i'll virtually strip down your studio for you and see each piece you have running and try get something worked out for ya

talk to ya later

PS: name is ross, look below my username!

 

[rlcramer]

Ross! I knew that!!

Anyway - so the saga continues. Tonight I took my entire rack, put a single speaker on top of it, and dragged it around to EVERY outlet in my house. What did I find? 1 outlet in my son's room works - same gear, same cables, same rack, same guitar, same EVERYTHING - NO NOISE! FUCK! Every other outlet in the house - same noise as in my studio.

I tried what you suggested about bringing the cable into proximity of my other gear, and nothing made it worse - the noise was constant no matter where the cables were, how close they were to power lines, UPS's, etc.

At this point, it seems like I have a bigger electrical issue than I was hoping to deal with. I had a major house renovation done a few year ago, and the only room that wasn't touched was my son's where the electrical seems good at the moment. I'm gonna see if I can figure out what is different between his outlets and the rest of the house, and hopefully it's something relatively cheap to fix.

I have my marching orders. I'll let you know what I figure out.

Thanks again - you've been a huge help...

Bobby

 

[AllanD]

Better than my problem, I'm getting really deep hum problems. 60hz I believe, so when I finally get to filtering out the problem in the mixing, the recordings have nothing in the subbass area, making them sound weak. It's probably this Behringer interface, I'm going to buy a Furman power strip with noise reduction to see if that helps.

 

[rlcramer]

Guys - I think I might have figured out my issue. I located 2 rooms in my house that exhibited no noise. I found them by dragging my entire studio rack, and one speaker to EVERY outlet in my house. Finally in my son's room, and my daughter's room, the noise went away completely. The only difference that I can see, is that both of these rooms have Arc Fault breakers in my electrical panel. I'm not sure what they are, or what they do, but it seems that their presence cures my noise problems.

Does anyone know why this would be? Should I simply replace the breakers for my studio with Arc fault breakers and call it a day? Or is there something else potentially bigger at play here?

Yeah - I'm an electrical idiot, so if any of you guys can shed some light on this for me, it would be appreciated.

I guess it's also possible that this is not the issue, but right now, I'm pretty confident that I've found the smoking gun...

Thanks,

Bobby

 

[mick thompson]

ok then im starting to see the picture now - its ruled out then that its not cable inductance which in 1 way is a + because it means all your equipment is properly shielded etc and no dodgy workmanship has been done to your rack units etc. thats a big a+!

firstly an arc fault breaker is a safety device on electrical supply areas to stop electricity arcing. firstly i'll explain an arc in a very simple way. imagine a welder (for welding metal) that this does is one end is the positive end of the electricity and the other end leads to the negative end. when you run a very high current through the positive end and bring it in close proximity to the negative end (you dont have to touch them with high current electricity) the electricity arc's and "jumps" to the negative end. this jump creates an extremely hot temperature which melts the metal your welding in milliseconds. high current (not voltage - current) electricity is extremely dangerous because of this arc - it can create heats of around 10,000+ deg Celsius (i dont know in F - we use C in ireland) so the devices on your sockets are to help protect the current from suddenly arcing and creating that sudden heat explosion which could potentially torch your house down to a pile of ash.

right thats done, you were saying you got work done in your house, by the sounds of it then it seems to be a ground loop problem. normally all electrical sockets in your house would be connected to the same ground. when they are swapped to secondary grounds you start to get a feedback loop which creates your ground loop problem causing your cycle hum in your electricity. this happens because although voltage and current going into your house is set at a standard 110v as it travels throughout the cables etc and gets grounded at different points it looses volts, gains current, htz cycles happen in cents etc. these tiny changes you could say "clash" with each other creating a ground loop.

a potential fix then would be (im not saying this would work for audio but it works for video signals eg sat, av etc because i've done it myself) is to get hold of a surge protector and hope that filters out the ground loop on your sockets. it beats ripping out the sockets throughout your house trying to re-ground all of them which your not going to do.

if that doesn't work the last thing i'd recommend is look into feeding the electricity from your kids rooms down to your studio for a clean current, it may be a little more expensive to do but again it beats re-grounding your entire house.

finally try a ground loop isolator in your audio chain but like i said i dont like them because they suck tone, anything that eq's out an audio freq is going to eq out specific frequencies of your tone. and theres no putting them back in after you isolate them. its like trying to amplify something that doesn't exist.

again 1st things 1st try a surge protector, check with your mates if anyone has one first because they can be a little expensive to buy, not too expensive but they'd cost you a few beers.

surge protectors look something like this:

dont mistake them for simple electrical extensions. they have circuits built in to protect from spikes. it should say surge protector on the box - if it doesn't dont buy it. (if you do buy one and it doesn't work take it back and tell them every time you plug it in it trips your electricity, and you tried it in a mates house and the same happens there too and demand a full refund)