Static Is Killing Me, Using The Scientific Method Options

[sfsurfer]

I'm wondering if some of you might be able to offer me some suggestions as to eliminate some static in my recordings.

My Setup:
I've got a 800 MHz G4 running 10.3.2 with 1.5 GB RAM and an Echo Mia PCI sound card which is connected to a Behringer Eurorack UB1202 mixer which has a single Shure SM58 microphone plugged into it. I'm using Deck for all of my recordings. I have all of this plugged into a UPS, which is then plugged into my wall.

My Problem:
Anytime I record with this setup, I get frequent static noises. I bought the UPS because I thought that the power from the utility company was causing the problem. After hooking up the UPS, I found no change in the frequency of the static. However, when I record using the cheap little microphone that came with my computer, I get no static on the recordings. This suggests to me that it is my setup with the sound card, mixer and microphone. What's really frustrating is that I avoided getting a USB interface for recording so that I wouldn't have the seemingly common static problems associated with USB.

My Question:
Is there an easy way for me to figure out where this static is coming from (within the sound card, mixer or microphone) without having to buy any more equiptment? I don't have access to another set of these components, so I can't just swap other ones in place of mine to test. I also can't return the sound card, mixer or microphone, so I'm stuck with them. Is there a likely culprit that is causing my problems? Has anyone else solved a similar problem? Or does anybody have a better suggestion in how to connect a XLR plugged microphone to a computer for relative cheap? If so, I've got a virtually unused sound card and mixer for sale cheap!

[lepetitmartien]

The noise source is either a noisy power unit somewhere between the UPS and your ears, or a ground loop somewhere.

You'll have to unplug one thing at a time from mains or in the audio path to find the faulty, it's all very logical even if it's boring and daunting.

Unplug also other electrical stuff in the room as a lamp can be enough.

For the mixer, try to move around and use another channel to check it's not this peculiar one.

Now If htere was a time when your setup didn't make that noise, find out what you have changed since.

Good luck
It can be a burden to find out.

[Nels]

Lepetitmartien has pretty much covered all that could be causing the static, but for what it's worth.........

If you have a fader light/fan switch in the room, that would cause static as well. If your fader is a must have, then try recording with it either all the way up or all the way down.

I would get rid of the fader all togther if possible.

Much trial and error, I'm afraid.

Good luck

[ArchivalAudio]

This may sound strange, but di dyou ever try burning a disc after recording to your hard drive? I have had issues of clicks or ticks, similar to static, whan I have tranfered a DAt to my hard dirve via my EgoSys waverterminal 2496 > Cubase 5.o vst, or if I use Peak. I ened up re transerfing and recording anumber of time and finally gave up an burned a disc and it sounded fine. Possibly something to do with latency??/ I do not know? I currently run a G3 "enabled" 450mhz / 1mb L2 cache Mac Clone (Power Computing) with 448mhz of RAM.
possibly it could be a lcak of har drive speed.

now as long as my trensfer is succesful , I put in track marks and burn a "test" disc, then I listen to it , usually there are not ticks or clicks.

don't know if this helps but I just thought I'd put it out there.

-- Ian
aka ArchivalAudio

[lepetitmartien]

If you have this on monitoring and not on the burned CD then it's either some fault in the monitoring part, or buffer size problem (especially clicks and plops)

when you say "enabled", do you mean porcessor upgraded or overclocking?

[PristineRec]

To put a completely different area into question here, could it be a digital sync problem?

I am not familiar with the interface or mixer you are using, but I get noise that sounds like "static" if I mistakenly don't have all my digital devices on the same clock, or if one device is not sending at the same sampling rate as the rest.

I have a preamp that defaults to 96khz when I turn it on, and if I don't change it to 48khz to match the rate of my Digi 001, I get all kinds of cracks and pops and fuzz and static. I also have the same problem with a digital mixer that can only send at 44.1khz.

Just another place to look!

[lepetitmartien]

It can be… sure…

Another cause not listed here of clicks and pops is MIDI spitting into audio on defective synths, a shielding issue at the connector level.

But for our friend with clicks in monitoring only, save if he has digital in monitors, it can't be a sync issue.

As usual, the difficult part is to find the wrongdoer…

[zelen0]

are you so certain the static is caused by your setup? Instead of a microphone, trying plugging something else in, like a CD player to test it out.

Can you provide some samples? Is it not possible that your higher-end mic is simply picking up more of a ceiling that the cheap dinky little mic is not picking up?

[zelen0]

One thing worth metioning as well is that not all UPS provide "clean power". Did you ensure the UPS you bought cleans the circuit? Some merely provide backup power without also doing the other job. Maybe it is power?

[lepetitmartien]

I think he put the UPS in the circuit in case it would arrange things but to no avail. So the noise was there already.

But you're right, UPS can be a source. Fortunately not all.

[zelen0]

what I meant to ask was, does that particular UPS state it provides 'line conditioning", that is what he's after. There's gear that specifically does that task, and while some UPSes do it properly, a lot do not.

I don't know if the line is the source of the static, but it very well can be.

[sfsurfer]

Thanks so much for all the suggestions! I'll try to go through them all and explain what I've done - nothing seems to have solved the problem unfortunately.

The UPS does have voltage line regulation, so that shouldn't be a problem any longer

I am not recording with anything else plugged in to the room (no dimmer switches present either) except the bare minimum of computer equiptment that I need (CPU, monitor, mixing board).

I tested the brilliant, yet obvious suggestion of using something else as an input device. I decided to use my headphones as a microphone and plugged them in to both the mixer and the PCI card directly. In both cases, any recording resulted in static.

I don't have any MIDI equiptment hooked up to my system.

I also have everything set for the input clock as internal input (not exactly sure what that means)

I believe everything is being sent at 44.1 kHz, but I need to do a little research on my mixer to see if that's true. It is being recorded at 44.1 kHz for sure

I have tried to burn a CD of the audio and it also contains the static

I have tried other channels on the mixer, and they all have the static.

From the above testing, it appears to me that the problem is residing in my PCI card or computer since using a microphone (my headphones) directly into my PCI card gave the same result.

I've tried to adjust the buffer size in Deck, but it seems to always reset itself to 512, no matter what I set it to. I'm using Deck LE, so if anyone has experience with it and can give me some advice there if that's unusual, I'd also greatly appreciate it.

One thing that I didn't mention before is that my 3 hard drives (plenty of free disk space) are all connected to a Sonnet Tempo ATA133 PCI card since I was hoping for some faster disk performance for A/V applications in my old sawtooth. Could this be causing some problems since the input and writing to the HDs are both on the PCI bus?

I'm going to try to post some samples on a web page soon (I'll post a link here), if any of you are interesting in assisting me further by taking a listen. Thanks again for all your suggestions and I welcome any more of them.

[lepetitmartien]

(head scratching)

well… it may be something in the mac polluting… the trouble is what…

i'll look, well, hear forward your sample, it may be of help…

[sfsurfer]

Well, everyone, I'm sorry that I didn't get around to posting my audio clips, but it seems as though I may have solved the problem. I was tinkering around with GarageBand because I was wondering if maybe there was a problem with the fact that my Mia audio card is 24 bit and Deck can only handle stuff at 16 bit. On a whim, I had set the GarageBand preferences for both input and output to my Mia card, although I don't have any speakers plugged into the output of the Mia. (I normally don't have it set up that way because I have my cheap speakers plugged into the Mac's audio output.) I recorded a sample and then plugged in my headphones to the output of the Mia card to listen to the track and NO STATIC! Needless to say, I repeated the performance with Deck's preferences set similarly (normally they are set for audio input for the Mia card and output for the Mac's) and again, no static. Then I set the preferences back to the way I normally have them and static everywhere again! So, for those of you who don't use the same input and output - that may be the cause of your problems like mine!

Thanks so much to everyone for their help in figuring this one out.
MacMusic users are great!