I have been trying to elimate a hum in my sound from the mixer,preamp or digitalrecorders. I have tried everything, cables, em

valuesys

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Sep 27, 2015
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I have been trying to elimate a hum in my sound from the mixer,preamp or digita lrecorder. I have tried everything, cables, eliminating different items etc etc. I just noticed that if I touch the outside case of the mixer or the digital recorder, the hums goes away. At this point i tried with and without the power strip, different plugs in different places, separating , shutting off other stuff in the room. Nothing works other then touching the case of the mixer or the digital recorder. what should i do next?
 
G

Guest

Guest


what is your source sound coming from ?
 

valuesys

Estimable
Sep 27, 2015
2
0
4,510


From a mic (atr2100) to the mixer (Mackie Pro FX 12) to the digital recorder (zoom Hn6)
Like I said , everything has been swapped out to try and find the hum, even the cables.
 
G

Guest

Guest
Have you got mains lift on your digital recorder ?

Try recording from a cd player (leave mic out of mixer) via the mixer to see if the hum is still present ?

Also sounds like Mains earth hum to me as changing the cables did not work, you have a few choices from the mixer to the digital recorder if it is analogue lead you need a ground loop isolator easy to find on Amazon dirt cheap or use a a to D from the output of the mixer & use optical to the digital recorder this has no connection to the recorder causing a ground loop.

 
Start with the amp and speakers and nothing else connected. You should have no hum.
Connect the mixer/pre (with no inputs connected). Do you get hum?
If so you can try lifting the ground of the mixer/pre, using an audio isolation transformer, or balanced audio instead of unbalanced (or vice versa).
If not then connect the digital recorder. If you get hum now you can lift the ground of the recorder, use an audio isolation transformer or change audio cable types.
You can also try grounding the recorder to the mixer with a piece of wire or grounding the chassis of the recorder to earth (that's what happens when you touch the chassis).
This might help
http://web.mit.edu/~jhawk/tmp/p/EST016_Ground_Loops_handout.pdf
 
G

Guest

Guest
Please explain how the mic is connected to the mixer & recorder with what leads i.e. balanced mic input or 1 &3 to ground in single ended mode or usb, then mixer to digital recorder ???