Electronic noise bleed through in recordings

corug7 wrote on 7/4/2005, 7:08 PM
I have recently discovered electronic noise bleed through that appears as static over my monitors. Furthermore, the static changes pitch when my hard drive kicks on or even when I move my mouse. When making a recording to the timeline of Vegas 4, this interference is recorded as well. To those in the know, is this something that might be remedied by changing my sound card to something more professional, or even balanced, or is there a way to shield the circuitry? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Comments

Geoff_Wood wrote on 7/4/2005, 10:40 PM
Could be 3 things:
- crappy soundcard
- Marginal capacity or poor power supply module in pC
- a bad ground connection to case or 0VDC wire
- A ground loop in connected equipment/wiring.

Ok, thats 4 !

geoff
PipelineAudio wrote on 7/5/2005, 1:00 AM
Geoff probably nailed it

For some good info read here http://www.jensentransformers.com/an/an004.pdf

and http://www.prosoundweb.com/studyhall/rane/grounding/ground.php
musicvid10 wrote on 7/5/2005, 8:12 AM
A really common cause of this is an open analog input to your sound card, like a CD-Rom or Aux input.

If you Mute all of your Recording Inputs except the one you are using, it will often cure the problem. If you happen to have a Soundblaster, make sure the RECORD input is set to your specific source, and NEVER use "What You Hear" as the source. HTH
corug7 wrote on 7/5/2005, 8:40 PM
Thanks for all the input. I tried muting some of the unused inputs as well as CD Audio and although it helped a little, I'm resigned to the fact that my onboard sound is junk. It's amazing how a decent set of monitors can make one realize how crappy the rest of his system is.
Geoff_Wood wrote on 7/6/2005, 2:33 AM
It's not a laptop is it ? My laptop (HP Pavillion) puts a buzz through all audio (onboard or M-Audio Transit) when operating on MAINS . This is because of the noise the SMPS power supply leaves on the DC.

It's fine on battereies...


geoff
musicvid10 wrote on 7/6/2005, 10:30 PM
Geoff,
I'll second that one! At a recent audition session, someone had their HP laptop plugged into the same power strip as my mic preamp for recording. Guess what, not only did a chopped AC buzz come through on the power line, but also a prominent hard drive whine. The filtering on those laptop power supplies is pathetic, and needs to be looked into as a Part 15 issue. I had to use a heavily filtered power strip to reduce the problem the second day.
corug7 wrote on 7/7/2005, 7:06 PM
Purchased a new M-Audio card and am anxiously awaiting its arrival. I'll hope this will fix my issues. Thanks for the input, everyone. By the way, I am using a tower and not a laptop.