No real good topic for this one, so I guess I'll start here since I'm certainly a newbie (hey, how about a "Studio Environment" topic?)
Anyway - last week recorded a guy with a Fender tube amp. No real problem, little bit of tube noise but well below -40 dB.
Last night brought the same gear plus a solid-state amp into the studio and the noise was completely ridiculous. The tube amp was humming mostly at the low end while the solid-state amp was hissing like a waterfall.
We did everything we could - shut off the fridge and deep freeze, shut off the AC, shut off all the fans, no flourescent lights or dimmers - still nasty. Even ran an extension cord to a socket using the other phase of the power coming in, still no good. Sometimes it would seem as if we had solved the problem but then a minute or so later it would be right back. We changed cables, swapped direct boxes, changed from LINE OUT to SPEAKER OUT (plus pad on the direct box) ... you name it, we did it.
The noise was only being picked up by the amps. The monitor speakers and the mixing board were clean on their own.
My thought is that the noise is not coming from something in my house but from the grid. With the heat down here everybody is running all their AC and fans and such full blast.
First off, is this a likely explanation? Second, I am planning on buying an UPS for my PC anyway - would this isolate line noise of this type?
Anyway - last week recorded a guy with a Fender tube amp. No real problem, little bit of tube noise but well below -40 dB.
Last night brought the same gear plus a solid-state amp into the studio and the noise was completely ridiculous. The tube amp was humming mostly at the low end while the solid-state amp was hissing like a waterfall.
We did everything we could - shut off the fridge and deep freeze, shut off the AC, shut off all the fans, no flourescent lights or dimmers - still nasty. Even ran an extension cord to a socket using the other phase of the power coming in, still no good. Sometimes it would seem as if we had solved the problem but then a minute or so later it would be right back. We changed cables, swapped direct boxes, changed from LINE OUT to SPEAKER OUT (plus pad on the direct box) ... you name it, we did it.
The noise was only being picked up by the amps. The monitor speakers and the mixing board were clean on their own.
My thought is that the noise is not coming from something in my house but from the grid. With the heat down here everybody is running all their AC and fans and such full blast.
First off, is this a likely explanation? Second, I am planning on buying an UPS for my PC anyway - would this isolate line noise of this type?
