Presonus Audiobox USB - Noise, Hiss (Please Help)

[folkranger]

Hi
Just set up my laptop. Exactly the same result although it is in the same room.

Next try laptop in a different room.

 

[folkranger]

Set up on laptop in different room. Buzz gone.

Need to find what is causing buzz in main room.

 

[Steenamaroo]

Set up on laptop in different room. Buzz gone.
Need to find what is causing buzz in main room.

Interesting. So it's the environment.
That's kinda strange.

Just to be clear, you literally just have a laptop, a usb cable and an audiobox? No power leads etc?


If so, systematically turn off everything in the room.
Dimmers and lights are the first to go. Then heavy appliances...Fridges, aircon etc. TVs, screens....Everything.

I mean, you shouldn't really get interference from surrounding appliances, but your obviously are!

 

[folkranger]

GOT IT!!!

Two years of my life, quite a few substandard recordings and a few hours today did the trick. Systematically switched everything off. (thought I'd done this before but obviously not).

It was the cordless phone. Looking now it should have been the most probable cause but hindsight is useless when your moving forwards.
The phone is constantly in contact with the base set even when not in use. The radio signals going round the room, a) vary and b) drift with my own movement, fooling me into thinking that other things were the problem.

So that's two obvious problems for folk to watch out for, Cordless phones and dimmer switches are a no-no in a recording (bedroom) studio.

Thanks for all the advice.

 

[cparmerlee]

I had EXACTLY that noise on my Audiobox USB, but only on channel 2. Channel 1 had a little less noise, but it was white noise, whereas your Soundcloud recording has a bit of a pitch to it.

In my case, I don't think it is related to a wireless phone or anything else in the environment. I believe the noise is either internal to the Audiobox or else being carried from my computer over the USB cable. Given how electronically noisy most PCs are, I really wish there were at least an option to supply power from a separate AC source.

I have something of a solution. I bought a Monster (brand) USB cable. It is called "Advanced high speed USB cable > 1200 Mbps" This seemed to have the best shielding of any cable I could find. Even better would be a well-shielded cable that has built-in ferrite filters, but I couldn't find such a cable locally.

The upshot for me is that with this cable, I am able to get the noise down to a reasonable level. I cannot go above about 85% on the gain controls on the Audiobox, but that is barely enough to work with a Shure SM57 dynamic mic. And it is more than enough to work with any of my condenser mics. Not as much headroom as I'd like, but enough.

I should also note that this same noise is appearing in my monitors, but in that case, I think it is coming through a cheap mixer I have in line. The Audiobox noise was not related to any other equipment (other than the PA) because I could hear the noise in the headphones plugged directly into the Audiobox.