Ableton Forum

Are they all noisy when you plug them into the USB port?

Mine makes a whirry noise like a helicopter taking off, and because I keep my samples on it, each time I just want to "audition" a sample in live, I get the whirring noise. I also have to wait a second for it.

Also the noise of it is amplified through my PC - so if i have the speakers turnd up, the noise of the hard drive will be noiser too. Weirdly, if I have my ultralite switched off, it still carries the sound of the hard drive to my speakers.

is this a new thing or do you have it longer ?
if this is new, i would backup all my files as fast as possible.

noises from HD's = not good
dying hd's make noises

that noise is send from the HD to you speakers without the soundcard is...yep, strange..

brightonalex wrote:Also the noise of it is amplified through my PC - so if i have the speakers turnd up, the noise of the hard drive will be noiser too. Weirdly, if I have my ultralite switched off, it still carries the sound of the hard drive to my speakers.

you must have some ground loop problem.
try pluging your HD with a cable that doesn't have a ground pin.

Thanks both - its always made that noise! I assumed thats what external hard drives did.

Peedro what is a ground pin?

i had that once - horrible. apparently it has to do with the electrical wiring in the drive and/or your house - the arm of the drive gets converted to a pickup. one guy in a computer store told me that this happens alot in germany; older houses with bad wiring.

try plugging the drive into a different grounded circuit / flipping polarity. .

i never got rid of the sound - sampled it a couple times, but ended up just using it for long term storage.

brightonalex wrote:Thanks both - its always made that noise! I assumed thats what external hard drives did.

Peedro what is a ground pin?

it's the one that goes out of the plug (there's 2 "holes" for current, and an extra male pin for ground if you see what i mean).

brightonalex wrote:Are they all noisy when you plug them into the USB port?

Mine makes a whirry noise like a helicopter taking off, and because I keep my samples on it, each time I just want to "audition" a sample in live, I get the whirring noise. I also have to wait a second for it.

does the drive have a fan in it? if so the whirring noise is probably the fan blasting away at maximum speed (e.g. some WD MyBook drives do that when they first start up or wake from sleep)... grinding or clicking noises however are definitely not good...

the delay is probably your drive spinning up from standby mode...

probably...