High Frequency Problems

[Burnsy]

I'm having some high frequency audio problems in anything that uses audio. Thought I'd seek some wisdom and opinions from the local audio gurus on this forum.

It's like a faint, tinny, digital sound around 4-6 kHz. I recently re-formatted, cleaned up, and tweaked my desktop PC to be more audio-condusive. I did not notice this sound as blatantly as I do now, before the cleaning and reformatting.

Research has suggested that its not a grounding problem with electrical, nor is it interference in my balanced TRS audio cables going from my monitors to my interface, as it affects my headphones as well; the exact same frequency. However, at normal listening levels, it is undetectable in my headphones. If I crank the headphones when the audio interface is engaged, and a program that uses audio is open, but not playing (Sonar, iTunes, Win Media Player, You Tube, etc,) this same frequency is present. If no audio app is open, there is no audible disturbance.

I think I've narrowed it down to a couple of things.

1. USB 2; onboard hubs (in CPU) and/or external connecting USB cables, cheaply made. May need new ones.

2. Onboard hard drive is not shielded well enough. The frequency of the RPMs of my hard drive 5400Hz, is actually "leaking" (for a lack of a better word,) into the audio signal somehow.

3. Something wrong with the interface. Most reasearch on the support forums suggests that it is not the interface, as people have been experiencing the same problem, but Line 6 cannot duplicate the results in their labs with the "faulty" UX8s in question.

My setup is this.

Compaq Presario, 2007
Vista Home Edition (hate it, but it is what it is)
1 Gig RAM
250Gig Hard drive, 5400RPM
Line 6 Toneport UX8 Interface
Behringer Truths B2031A
Sonar Producer 8 (although problem exists in any audio app)

So at this point, I'm open to any and all suggestions. My project recording has slowed down because of this. I know the most obvious solution is to get new USB cables, and/or a new PC. That will come. But for now, is there anything else that I'm overlooking? Thanks in advance for any help!!! And thanks for taking the time to read through this monstrosity!!

[Burnsy]

So I just spoke to another UX8 owner who had this same problem. Well, I had an online chat via the line 6 forums. Anyways, as stated, he had the exact same problem. Did everything he could, still no solution. So he had an electrician come in, he needed to rewire his entire home!!!!! Apparently dimmer switches, crt video, or other electrical irregular devices can do this to audio equipment.

Not looking forward to rewiring the house!!! I'll keep you updated.

[jammy jamz]

wow.

i think i would try a couple other trouble shoots first, before re-wiring the whole house...

IE:

1. rent or borrow a different interface, just to check that.
2. ups/line conditioner, for the comp, interface, and monitors.
3. (this one wont be liked by a couple/most/all of the people here) but
lift the ground, with a cheap dollar store extension cord. (not really a
fix, but more of a check the problem thing)
4. if all else fails, have an electrician, or if your qualified to do it yourself,
install a completely separate power junction for your control room,
with conditoners, and filters built in.

re-wiring the house, sounds expensive, but, if it has to be done...it has to be done.

good luck.

[macrae11]

To extend on some of jamz's suggestions, maybe try borrowing a laptop and get a long extension cord with a "ground lift" on it and try moving to different locations in your room/house. If it's CRT's and/or dimmers you might be able to ditch some old TV's/monitors, replace a few switches and be home free. You could also try this at a friends house, or somewhere that you know has good solid power with no issues. (Lepreau anyone?) This would at least narrow things down.

[macrae11]

Another quick thought, if it's being affected by having audio apps open or not, that leads me to think it might be a USB bus/computer issue. Checking this with a laptop should show if this is the case as well.

[jammy jamz]

ah yeah, Andrew.

i never even thought of that, but, its true, those data buses can be fragile things.

so.

Burnsy, if you want, I will be uptown tommorow, and we can meet at the library, or somewhere close. I could install the drivers for your device, and we can check it on my test laptop, if you want to rule that out as a possible cause. . We can just install it, and, I'll fire up reaper, and listen through the headphones, to see if the whine is still there.

the library, where all the cool kids hang out.

[Mathieu Benoit]

the library, where all the cool kids hang out.

What's a library?

[jammy jamz]

its a room that has "shelves", and on these "shelves" are these things called "books"

the best way i can describe these "books", is,

if you took a printout of a page from your browser, and then clicked on the next link..and printed that out too......etc...for a while, and then, bounded them together, with a nice "cover", and "back"...it"s like a mini self-contained section of the interweb...all pertaining to one subject, with no java, or flash, or audio.......you know. boring.

i think they were invented in the time of "the smurfs" or something....back in the day when people used to "go outside"

[Mathieu Benoit]

:-D

its a room that has "shelves", and on these "shelves" are these things called "books"

the best way i can describe these "books", is,

if you took a printout of a page from your browser, and then clicked on the next link..and printed that out too......etc...for a while, and then, bounded them together, with a nice "cover", and "back"...it"s like a mini self-contained section of the interweb...all pertaining to one subject, with no java, or flash, or audio.......you know. boring.

i think they were invented in the time of "the smurfs" or something....back in the day when people used to "go outside"

Ummm... Divide by zero.

[jammy jamz]

that figures.\

[Malcolm Boyce]

I had to take some minutes and digest the contents of this thread before commenting.

I can say with a great degree of certainty that your problem is not being caused by the AC mains of your home. Unless you are simply lacking a proper earth ground, which I'm sure a smart fella like you would check first, the issue is in your setup. Any other serious AC mains problems would be manifesting itself in many places, not some obscure squeal in your audio computer.

It is most certainly a defect in your interface, or a settings issue with your interface. The fact that you need an "audio application" open to hear the noise has me a little puzzled, but your interface may not have it's outputs live unless an ap is open as a noise reduction measure.

I have heard identical noises in many setups, and they are usually related to mistakenly having an interface set to "monitor" an input that isn't connected to a device. You are basically listening to an unterminated input which is picking up, as you guessed, either hard drive noise, or in a lot of cases video card noise.

Check to make sure you have every "input" muted and then open an application that is experiencing the problem and see what happens. If you have all inputs muted already, we'll move on to the next section of troubleshooting.

Good luck, and keep us in the loop.

[Burnsy]

Thanks for waiting folks. I was switching service providers from one money leecher to another. This time its more cheap, and the service appears to be a little bit better. Goodbye Rogers!! (sorry if offended, bad, bad experiences, a whole other post I'm sure.... actually I believe it has been a topic here before.)

The other odd thing; I can access this forum with my crackberry, but for some reason I couldn't post to it. The error comes up on my smack attack as "invalid script type." Not sure what thats about. Anyways.....

So Jammy, thanks for offering to help me in person. The library? You mean Wikipedia? Haven't seen a real library in these parts, since... golly I don't know! Anyways, enough stupidity. In all seriousness thanks for the offer.

So I fixed the problem, thanks be to Fat Jebus. I ended up going to a number of different outlets in my house, having the same problem. I swapped out an old power bar to a dollar store 2 prong jobby, for PC equipment only, and plugging the powered monitors, and audio interface into seperate wall outlets all together. I also turned off any inactive inputs (thanks Malcolm!). And Voila, peace and quiet, it was so relieveing, for so many reasons!!!

So a combination of experimenting, and the advice you guys gave me, has certainly made me a very happy man again. Thanks to all. So enough of this jibbering and jabbering..... I got me some songs to record!! Weeooo!!!!! Peace y'all. Will be in touch soon!

[Mathieu Benoit]

Thanks for waiting folks. I was switching service providers from one money leecher to another. This time its more cheap, and the service appears to be a little bit better. Goodbye Rogers!! (sorry if offended, bad, bad experiences, a whole other post I'm sure.... actually I believe it has been a topic here before.)

Rogers service blows donkey balls. You can certainly quote me on that.

The other odd thing; I can access this forum with my crackberry, but for some reason I couldn't post to it. The error comes up on my smack attack as "invalid script type." Not sure what thats about. Anyways.....

I haven't had any trouble posting from my Blackberry. I wish I could help.

So I fixed the problem, thanks be to Fat Jebus. I ended up going to a number of different outlets in my house, having the same problem. I swapped out an old power bar to a dollar store 2 prong jobby, for PC equipment only, and plugging the powered monitors, and audio interface into seperate wall outlets all together. I also turned off any inactive inputs (thanks Malcolm!). And Voila, peace and quiet, it was so relieveing, for so many reasons!!!

So you just basically just lifted the ground. Did I understand correctly?

[Malcolm Boyce]

So you just basically just lifted the ground. Did I understand correctly?

I hope he isn't circumventing an AC ground.... Noise or not.

I assume by his comment that he found that he did have inputs being monitored. That is probably the major cause of the noise.

[Mathieu Benoit]

So you just basically just lifted the ground. Did I understand correctly?

I hope he isn't circumventing an AC ground.... Noise or not.

I assume by his comment that he found that he did have inputs being monitored. That is probably the major cause of the noise.

I just wasn't clear on what it was that actually fixed it. He mentioned two solutions in tandem there. One seems to involve removing the 3rd prong.

I swapped out an old power bar to a dollar store 2 prong jobby

[Burnsy]

Well, here's the thing. It could be either or, as far as I'm concerned. I say its a combination of both, because, both actions were done before testing the equipment. The power bar I was using was from 1984, it was a robust beast, and I figured it would be of better quality than the dollar store power bar. But, it may not have been very clean conveyor of power.

I kept using the old power bar through all my tests, until I read about the inputs. When I went back to testing, for giggles and goggles, I decided to "try" ther cheap one. The cheap one did not have a third prong just two, as there was no tampering or removal of ground. And I also checked all active inputs, and muted 2 that were not in use. So in my opinion, both methods are correct, or were components of a nulment in high frequency. I'm not going to try to recreate the noise. I think it was the crappy power bar, somehow picking up the RPMs of my hard drive, because I did do a frequency analysis, and it was hitting somewhere around the 5kHz range.

However, I had 2 inputs open. Because my consumer grade PC is not shielded well, the power bar was old and inadequate, I believe the combination of 3 things, however defined, led to my high frequency problems.

So in retrospect, and lessons learned;

1. Check/Test all cables, audio and AC.
2. Mute unused inputs
3. Do not overload any one wall outlet or power bar.
4. Keep accurate notes of problems, methodology, and resolutions.
5. Ask for help.
6. Give thanks when due.

Thanking as it is due. Thanks.

[Mathieu Benoit]

The cheap one did not have a third prong just two, as there was no tampering or removal of ground.

Actually there maybe was no "tampering", but there definitely isn't a ground anymore...