static noise when recording digital piano using Steinberg UR22MKII device

gruust

New member
Hello!

I have a somewhat strange issue recording my digital piano. Well, strange at least to me.

I use Hi-Z to record my guitar and the signal is near perfect. I listen directly to the digital piano, ie. connecting headphones directly to it, and the sound is as good as one might expect.

But then I connect the digital piano to the Steinberg device and suddenly there is TONS of white noise. The signal is totally useless. I bought a 3m Fender cable with shielding (Fender Del. Cable Angle Plug 3m TN from Thomann DE) and it did not change anything. That cable has a rectangular connector with a bare back that I can touch to remove the usual noise from the guitar when not touching (grounding) any of the strings. The same technique has no effect on the digital piano when connected to the Steinberg UR22mkII. Another cable produces a HUGE humming sound when used to connect the piano to the ASIO device.

What gives?

Thx in advance.
 
We need some specifics. Are we talking hums or hiss? Your Digital piano - does it have line outputs or are you using the headphone socket? Some digital keyboards don't have proper line outs and the headphone stereo socket is often a pain for a number of reasons. It's higher in level, so any noise appears to be rather loud, but also you are shorting out one channel when you stick in a mono jack. I've never known it to actually cause any grief but it does reveal some er, less pleasant defects in the audio.

So - this white noise. Just a loud hiss or a loud hiss with the piano audio too? You say the signal is useless, as there is some but swamped by hiss, or absent?

The Steinberg device - which is it. What I think you are saying is that you can record the guitar fine, you pull the plug out and shove it into the keyboard and you hear the hiss. The keyboard socket? Does it have two one marked something like L/mono and another marked r, or is it really just the headphone socket. If you have to use that, turn the keyboard volume right down. Then turn down the input on the steinberg interface. raise it just a little bit, then raise the keyboard just a bit. Tell us what happens during each of these stages.
 
Okay, so it seems the signal coming out of the headphone jacks is a few db stronger but has about the same noise level. I tried to reach the same volume level through the LINE OUT ports and therefore got the huge hiss background. Seems like that thing is optimized towards the headphone jacks and has a quite better SNR on them... btw it's a GeneralMusic Promega 3. Just in case someone else is going to encounter the same nuisance.
 
I cannot as yet find a user manual for the Promega 3 but I note from a picture of the Promega2 that it is an earthed device with a 3pin IEC mains input. That raises the spectre of a ground loop, normally a hum but can also be heard as 'digital hash'.

However, you say the headphone output is also rather noisy? That seems to point to a fault. The keyboard is a large expensive unit, I would expect it to be very quiet. Have you tried feeding it to an external amplifier, i.e. for stage use?

The normal fix for ground loops is an isolating transformer but good ones are quite expensive and you need a dual unit. Can you beg or borrow a passive DI box from a friendly guitarist? This will take the (line'ish level but probably nearer -10dBV =300mV) to balanced microphone level but vitally, it will isolate the keyboard's earth from the interface.

Or, you could look on Amazon where you will find a very cheap, ~$10 dual isolator used by ICE folks. I have had a couple and they are not at all bad. Not top sound quality but DO do the important job of ground isolation. They are line level devices. Snag is they come with RCA plugs all aover so there will need to be some cutting and splicing to get tem to work but at these levels and impedances, simple "Twist it and Gaffer it" will serve for a test.

Oll be bek with a link. AV Link Ground Loop Isolator: Amazon.co.uk: Hi-Fi & Speakers

Dave.
 
Me again. That 'Zon box can be used with two RCA to 1/4" jack plug adaptors and a 'stereo' RCA to jack plus cable tother end. It matters little which way around the isolator is connected.

I don't know your level of experience with music electronics friend but if a bit new to it all you will find you will need to gather various 'devices' and cables to solve problems. An earth isolator with a gaggle of adapting cables is a very good addition to any muso's gig bag.

Dave.
 
A couple of questions . . .

1 Is the noise present when you listen to the Promega itself through headphones?

2 Is the noise present when you listen to the Promega through the Steinberg's headphones ouput?

It's not clear what kind of outputs the Promega has, but I expect it has Left and Right outputs on the back. It's worth getting a pair of jack to jack leads to go from L + R Promega outputs to Steinberg inputs 1 and 2, and don't engage the hi-Z on channel 2.

Even if you use just one output from the Promega and go inot channel 2 of the Steniberg, still don't use hi-Z.

If you are going out of the headphone socket of the Promega, you would need a TRS cable (to go into the promega headphone socket) that splits into a pair of TS jacks to go into channels 1 and 2 of the Steinberg
 
I missed that the headphone output of the KBD was clean so I am still putting this down to a ground loop.

Dave.
 
Back
Top