Ableton Forum

I have a USB souncard (Novation Nio) connected to Samson active monitors with RCA cables. As soon as I open Live, I hear a whine through my monitors.

When the DAW is closed, this whine is completely gone. What could the problem be? I was thinking a ground loop problem, but that the fact that the whine is only there when the software is open is odd.

Any ideas?

there's an audio feedback problem somewhere. do you have a microphone? do you have an audio cable connecting an input to an output?

^ Yep

I bet the problem goes away when you have everything turned down on your interface too...

Is your girlfriend or wife around? I tend to hear alot of whining from my gf when Live is open.

Tone Deft: No microphone connected, all that's connected to the interface are the RCA cables.

H20nly: The whine is still apparent with everything turned down.

RCUS: I'm lucky enough to have a girlfriend who not only studies the same audio engineering course as me, but also writes her own music. So no whining from that department.

Update: When using the Asio4All or ASIO Novation USB ASIO Driver drivers, the whine is there. If I use the DX Nio or Multimedia Nio drivers, the whine is gone but the latency is horrid and crackles appear when I reduce the buffer size. (So it appears the whine only exists when using ASIO)

Don't give up on the ground loop idea. This stuff can be weird.
Can you here it on headphones? My guess is you only here it on the active Samsons.
Balanced cables would be the way to go - but afaik this is not an option with your audio interface...
Experiment with different power outlet connections (computer/monitors) and see if the sound changes.

Dom

dom wrote:Don't give up on the ground loop idea. This stuff can be weird.
Can you here it on headphones? My guess is you only here it on the active Samsons.
Balanced cables would be the way to go - but afaik this is not an option with your audio interface...
Experiment with different power outlet connections (computer/monitors) and see if the sound changes.

Dom

yep. weird stuff can cause this, at times simply changing the plug in order of your PSUs can help reducing or even removing it totally... that means if you use for example a Power plug Board... just change the order around of the items plugged into it... after every 'order' turn up the volume very high, without any signal... and listen to the whine, if it changes, e.g. goes lower or raises...

I have Samsons and as far as i can remember when i originally set up I had to make sure they were all connected to the same plug socket via a multi way board. I have no problems at all like that.

Hmmm.

I have two power points in my wall with two extensions connected to it.

Extension 1 has my router, network hub and monitor (screen) attached.

Extension 2 has my monitors (speakers).

Now I seem to have narrowed the problem down to the monitor screen. When unplugged, the problem goes away but if it's plugged into any of the outlets (whether the power switch on the outlet is on or off), be it VIA extension or straight into the power point, the problem is back.

This occurs even if I plug my monitor into a totally separate extension which goes to a totally different wall socket.

if that happens only when live is open, it sounds to me more like a config problem
try disabling every audio input (and check what is your default recording device)

It also occurs with Cubase.

Make sure everything is plugged into the same socket via a multiway board. Almost certain that will solve your problem.

As i said, those ground loop things can drive you mad.
Go for a balanced connection or try a ground isolator.

Still there when all plugged into the same socket, actually even more apparent. :/

Gonna go for the ground isolator route before I end up in hospital.

These type of problems are usually caused by multiple paths to earth. some current from the digital signal to the sound card is returning to the computer by a path other than the usb cable.

Did you try dom's suggestion - disconect the samsons and listen on headphones. If the problem is not there when the speakers are disconnected then it is almost certainly an earthing problem.

My guess would be that when the monitor is connected it provides a path from your computers ground to the mains safety earth. This creates an alternate return path for the usb signal - via the RCA leads, the power cable of the samsons, the mains wiring, the power cable of the monitor and then via the video cable back to the computer.

The reason you can only hear it when an application is running may be because the USB interface is used only when the sound card is in use. When using DX or WDM the comunication between the computer and the sound card is a lot less frequent because of the huge buffer size compared to ASIO. Does the sound change when you change buffer sizes? that would be another clue.

The only solutions are balanced connections, ground loop isolating transformers, or disconnecting the earth pin on the speaker power cable or the monitor (risking your life in the process!).

This is the stuff that the glossy brochures and sales people never mention. "Oh yes sir, this card will work perfectly with this PC, but only if you use top flight professional audio equipment, or place a performance degrading component in the signal path, or live with the risk of electrocution"