Equipment picking up radio station!

B

bsnalex

New member
Hi,

First post to the forum and I am a real novice at all this. I hooked my piano up to my equipment and when using my headphones to monitor the sound i noticed the equipment was now picking up radio. Specifically 1215 AM (Absolute Radio in the UK). I can't for the life of me figure out why, as everything has worked fine when it was guitar and microphone.

Equipment:
Piano: Yamaha Clavinova CLP 120
connected via the speaker out using a standard 6.5 mm Fender FG10L cable (10 ft amp patchcord)
into a
Focusrite Scarlett 2i4, connected via USB to
Toshiba Satellite P300 running windows 7
Audacity 2.1.2

Using personal earphones connected 3.5mm to 6.5mm adapter into the 2i4 monitor jack

Any advice that can be given would be most appreciated

Thanks
 
That happens to me too once in a while. I don't know why. It doesn't happen often enough or last long enough for me to be bothered to figure it out.
 
Spoke to Yamaha and they'd never heard of this. The only thing their tech support suggested is using a balanced patch cord instead of unbalanced. Will report back.
 
Try a balanced cable. If that doesn't work, it might be a ground problem (earth problem)
 
RFI is a tricky beast. It's usually assumed that the RF gets into the system via the connection cable, hence the advice to improve the screening and possibly balance it, but very often the problem is not that at all. The RF is being 'collected' by the cable, but is not going direct to the amp/recording system - the RF on the screen is getting back into the keyboard, where it is rectified and leaks into the output audio - so in effect, the RF is demodulated into audio (like an old fashioned cat's whisker radio set), and then appears on the output - superimposed on the keyboard audio. Could be a fault - something as simple as a dry joint, or a design flaw. Are you close to the AM trabsmitter? What is needed is a block to the RF. A cable choke might do it - those black nobly things you often find on power supply cables and computer monitor cables. Or an old loudspeaker magnet, removed and a few turns of the jack to jack wound through it and taped to stop it unravelling.
 
"connected via the speaker out using a standard 6.5 mm Fender FG10L cable "

That D piano does not HAVE a "speaker" out (and you would not want to use it if it did!). It DOES have "AUX" outputs, both L and R and a MONO sum. Why, in (insert Deity of choice) name would you NOT use the designated connections?

But, even using the AUX outs you might still have an RFI problem and, as someone else said, they can be tricky.

First check. Cable quality and I do NOT means expensive Russ A shit! No, good solid audio cables and for THIS job foil screened cable is better than lapped or braided.

Next, buy some snap on ferrite cores from Maplin (see you are UK, where?) . Wind the cable around those and try some both ends. Be systematic, note down any changes in the level of the RFI.

It would help ENORMOUSLY if you or a pal were handy with a soldering iron since you could then make up a pair of "shielded return" 2 core cables. These almost always fix RFI probs because they eliminate RF currents in the shield. AFAIK such leads are not available commercially (though Rob at Kabl might help).

But in the end RF susceptibility is in the gift of the INPUT device, in this case the AI. An email to F'rite might yield fruit. (we have a "company man" around somewhere? ) Never read of RF troubles with their gear but given a high enough field strength anything will offend.

Just a thought. If all else fails try a GUITAR DI box and feed the piano into the mic inputs. The combination of the step down transformer and balanced output could do the trick.

Yonks ago, in the days of the GPO we had an excellent RFI tracing service. Don't think it any longer exists and would in any case be private and that means an expensive chocolate teapot.

Dave.
 
I have a bit of experience dealing with this problem as the school I teach music at is located less than one mile from a huge AM radio tower/station. I have tried many different kinds of shielded cables and shielding devices. The only thing that works for me is using RCA/Composite cables. I believe your piano has RCA AUX outs. I would try a cable that goes from RCA to 1/4" and plug into the two channels on the Focusrite. Just my two cents, even though I am a noob here.
c151c9a38c3db001da4dfbab364fa815-aa2ced4c73a106aeb96868c2df4d3fc6.jpg
 
You can also trying putting some ferrite doughnuts on each end of your patch cables. Only one or two loops around the doughnut will suffice.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top