Ableton Forum

Hi,
Can anyone help?

I've got an Dell Insprion Laptop and an Ediriol UA-25 external soundcard. Using Live 5.2.

There's always been a slight background noise which you can hear on headphones - but this becomes more pronounced when you ramp up the volume through speakers.

At home the background 'hum' or 'hiss' is bareable but in my mate's studio (same speakers, different mixer) the sound is really shit. What's the problem?

Duff laptop? Duff soundcard?


Any help would be great!

thanks

steve

ps: check out my band! www.myspace.com/golddigger

hi there--

I was given some excellent advice in a different thread -- doesn't sound like it would make any difference, but it worked like a charm:

Get a 3-prong to 2-prong power adapter, and stick it on your computer's power cable. This should reduce the noise completely.

This solved an awful noise problem for me using a PC laptop and an M-Audio firewire interface.

Good luck,
d

try reading this

any help? or is this not the problem your having?

you need a groundloop isolator. that fixes it.

Yea, i just realized the same thing the other day. I thought all my firewire cable had gone bad because i was getting this awful Hiss and radio interference like sound from my speakers. I had never had this happen before with my laptop so i went and bought a new cable, but that wasn't it. I was thinking that it was my laptop when all of a sudden i thought to unplug the power cable from the laptop and sure enough the bad sounds ended. I will try the 3 prong to 2 prong idea becuase for now I've just been running on Battery power while working.

Dudes,
I've read you shouldn't use the 3-2 prong solution because you are 'unearthing' the power source and you could get electrocuted...beware..

http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/set ... ableTV.php

The ground loop isolator sounds the right way forward. But in my set up above - how do i identify the source of the hum? Is it:

Between laptop and UA-25, UA-25 and speaker?

stevewb wrote:Dudes,
I've read you shouldn't use the 3-2 prong solution because you are 'unearthing' the power source and you could get electrocuted...beware..

http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/set ... ableTV.php

The ground loop isolator sounds the right way forward. But in my set up above - how do i identify the source of the hum? Is it:

Between laptop and UA-25, UA-25 and speaker?

the noise comes from the laptop, of course.

it's a common problem... I've been told that an UPS should solve the problem cause incorporates strong grounding that's capable of adsorbing all the shit.

I solved with balanced/unbalanced cables (the noise is still there but I don't hear it). When recording can be a problem though.