equipment humm

[freakuincy]

hey pplz

i've got a friend who has this track that
that has humm (very light) in all of its tracks
b/c of some cheap equipment - but likes
what he has - urgg! - the sound source won't clean
up any more than we have it.
can i eq this humm out or is there a better trick?

much thanks
freakuincy [img]images/icons/confused.gif[/img]

[Munxcub]

what if you tried recording the hum, then inverting the phase to cancel it out of the other track? that might work or just sound really screwed up...

i have a related question: how would you go about getting rid of an earth loop hum? i have it narrowed down to my preamp, now what do i do?

[freakuincy]

good advice guys -

do ya think the humm is created by turning up the gains or is the humm just inherent to the device.
i think he used a 303 groove toy?

i'll try the DiNR and some eq'age and see?

sorry Munxcub - no ideas for you
got lost when you said earth loop humm??

[lison44]

You can try using the DINR plugin, which can work quite well. Otherwise, try to eq out 60Hz in America, or 50Hz over seas. Most of all, good luck. It's tough to get hum out of tracks without destroying those tracks. In the future try to defeat the hum at the source. There are various ways of defeating hum at the source. Most of us can't afford a top of the line power solution. One thing he could do (and I know people are going to scream at me for this, but it works in a lot of situations) is to try to ground lift all of the gear. This can be dangerous for you and gear. If you live in an area with lots of lighting...don't do this.

I know...I know it's dangerous, but so is driving motorcycles, and I like to think I'm a bit more dangerous than that. Far more people die in motorcycle crashes each year than do from improper grounding of electronics. Hell, half of Florida is wired up backwards, without grounding, or other such problems... Otherwise, if that's too scary, you can try ground lifting various patches in the audio chain, and that can work too. That just requires more time and adapters. Tell your friend that if he tries it, be careful...

To sum it up, the best solution is to find a way of recording the tracks without hum.

[Zeek]

Earth is typically Euro talk for "Ground"

Try a Furman balanced power transfomer. This worked for me but it's around 800 USD

-Zeek

[Hiltronex Sound]

freakuincy:
Getting rid of hum (as all above replies have noted) can truly be a pain.
If DINR is not available, I've used the 4 band EQ Plug-in with very narrow Q (ie Q=12) and notched out the fundamental 60,then 120, 240, 480, (50/100/200/400 UK) etc, frequencies. Using a high Q affects the original material less, but by no means is a very great solution.
As previously posted, checking input/output optimal gain is a good idea too - - and sometimes taking a piece of hookup wire and just touching various metal chassis parts between gear will help to reduce the problem. Also it's best to power all your gear off ONE AC outlet or multiple - - that way earth/ground loops can't occur between outlets (and they will, even between outlets only 6 feet (a couple of meters)
apart).
Makes one want to go to all battery power - - and
yes, the balanced AC supplies (+60/-60 or +50/-50 instead of 0/+120 or 0/+240) DO make a difference
- - albeit expensive . . .
Good luck - - you're not alone in this aggravation

[moosemaster]

And a piece of advice oft heard - ( if your audio gets out of the box anywhere during the process...)
Before crawling around unplugging replugging leads/mains, performing any earth/ground lifts - Switch off your monitor and have a listen.

[freakuincy]

sweet ppl -

this place rocks and i thank you all.
looks like its process of elimination
time. no other forum that i am apart of
gives proper and useful results like this one!

till next time
freakuincy [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[lison44]

Hey, we call grounding, Earth in the US as well!! It's not like we're damn apes here!! [img]images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]