Cured - strange clicking when recording

rob aylestone

rob aylestone

Moderator
Seeing the other recent post on interference, I thought I'd share this one. In my video studio there's an old mac with a firewire Presonus Firepod - I quite like this, and being rack mountable - it's useful. The PC runs Cubase, through a red 2 channel simple interface, you know the type, and two in and two out works pretty well - for the occasional multitrack requirement, I use the Mac/Presonus and do an awkward transfer to the PC. This is very annoying so I bought another behringer UMC 1820, which I have in the home studio. Connected it up, plugged in a mic, and there was an intermittent click/pop. Sounded like something discharging, not mega loud, but wrecking recordings - constant, but random times between clicks.

I tried all the obvious things - sampling rate, buffers and drivers made no difference. The solution was the USB cable! Just the bog standard, printer type cable with USB -A one end and the square shaped connector at the other end. Not a thin and flimsy one, but one with transparent outer that you can see the braid through. I swapped it for the similar one connecting my master keyboard to the computer. Problem solved, and the keyboard works fine on the dodgy cable.

It was one of my longer ones, but nothing special - 3m I think. One to tuck away in the little grey cells. Got clicks on an interface, try swapping the cable!
 
I wouldn't have suspected that.
Perhaps the shield is not as connected as it might be.
 
rob aylestone said:
Seeing the other recent post on interference, I thought I'd share this one. In my video studio there's an old mac with a firewire Presonus Firepod - I quite like this, and being rack mountable - it's useful. The PC runs Cubase, through a red 2 channel simple interface, you know the type, and two in and two out works pretty well - for the occasional multitrack requirement, I use the Mac/Presonus and do an awkward transfer to the PC. This is very annoying so I bought another behringer UMC 1820, which I have in the home studio. Connected it up, plugged in a mic, and there was an intermittent click/pop. Sounded like something discharging, not mega loud, but wrecking recordings - constant, but random times between clicks.

I tried all the obvious things - sampling rate, buffers and drivers made no difference. The solution was the USB cable! Just the bog standard, printer type cable with USB -A one end and the square shaped connector at the other end. Not a thin and flimsy one, but one with transparent outer that you can see the braid through. I swapped it for the similar one connecting my master keyboard to the computer. Problem solved, and the keyboard works fine on the dodgy cable.

It was one of my longer ones, but nothing special - 3m I think. One to tuck away in the little grey cells. Got clicks on an interface, try swapping the cable!
Click to expand...
I know it's odd right - but when i had problems back in the USB days 10 times out 9 it was the USB Cable - shifty ground or slight disconnect or something cablely.

BTW The Square Connector is a USB B style connector.
 
The USB cable to my Interface has a filter (not sure what it is) on the cable. I thought it probably wasn't important, but that may also be why I have never had any type of USB issue.
 
I once tried a very long USB cable with my 16x08 interface but it became a bit glitchy. I think it was about 12 or 15 ft. With a 3 ft cable, things are just fine. Oddly, the long cable worked just fine when I was transferring tracks from my AW1600. I'm not sure what the difference is between the USB in the Yamaha vs the Tascam, but it was apparent.

There are differences in the various cables. USB 3 cables have more wires, and are designed to reject interference, which lets them handle the higher data rates error free. With USB 4 hitting 40 to 80GBPS, you'll need a more high spec cable to take full advantage of that capability.
 
My experience of USB cable issues is very low but I did have a problem some years ago. An NI KA6* was setup one side of the "studio" and 2, 5mtr USB A/B cables ran around the walls to two desktop PCs.

One of the cables worked fine with both PCs but the other, a different brand did not. The interface could not be found with one of the PCs but the other was fine! Might this be a function of how the power and shield grounding is effected in any particular PC?

*N.B. Not a failure in any way of the interface. NI point out in their manual that 3mtr is the maximum recommended length and indeed supply a very high quality 3mtr cable that gives perfect results in all PC combinations. The specification for USB 2.0 is that 5mtr is the absolute maximum for most devices but for the special and demanding case of transmitting digital audio it is no surprise to me that 3mtr is a safer bet? I have a Brother colour scanner, B&W printer that runs flawlessly on 5mtr.

Dave.
 
I suppose its down to capacitance and impedance. It might not have huge issues with audio, bar guitars and long cables where it just performs like a filter, but with square waves, being squirted at ever increasing frequencies down cable, those nice square edges probably start to become curvy, and as soon as the interface and computer cant detect where the start and stop, the nasty noises start? That must be the cause. To be honest, i rather thought digits just were there, or not. If i hear that clicking, I now can recognise it for what it is.
 
DM60 said:
The USB cable to my Interface has a filter (not sure what it is) on the cable. I thought it probably wasn't important, but that may also be why I have never had any type of USB issue.
Click to expand...
The device is most likely a ferrite ring and is used to reduce RF interference on the USB Cable.
 
ecc83 said:
One of the cables worked fine with both PCs but the other, a different brand did not. The interface could not be found with one of the PCs but the other was fine! Might this be a function of how the power and shield grounding is effected in any particular PC?
Click to expand...
No it is the manufactures of USB Cables fault - no one knows why but way back in the early days all cables were not bi-directional - they would have some sort of symbol on them that would show which way it went - but no one would ever look out for them - just like with Directional HDMIs - there used to be (for reason too stupid to think about) HDMI cables that you could hook up only one direction.
 
Interesting.. I never encountered an HDMI that would only go one way. Maybe that was "before my time". I didn't go to HDMI for a long time. My flat screen plasma TV went 18 years, and it had component RGB and VGA inputs and I think there was 1 HDMI.

I know that there are some USB cables now that only supply power, but they are supposed to be a deterrent to getting hacked if you use a public charger. But they'll throw you for a loop if you don't realize it and can't figure out why a USB device won't work.
 
Papanate said:
No it is the manufactures of USB Cables fault - no one knows why but way back in the early days all cables were not bi-directional - they would have some sort of symbol on them that would show which way it went - but no one would ever look out for them - just like with Directional HDMIs - there used to be (for reason too stupid to think about) HDMI cables that you could hook up only one direction.
Click to expand...
Please explain further. As far as I always knew USB 2.0 at least was bi directional. There is the power negotiation if nothing else?

I use to have a USB 1.1 device the M-Audio Fast Track Pro interface. The mic pres were crap but the drivers were pretty good and latency with a dumb Evo controller very acceptable.

Dave.
 
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