Mbox Noisy!?!

[gdx]

Is your Power options set to 'Always On'? Does the whine change when using battery vs. ac adaptor?

Most of the time this is caused by the computer itself putting noise down the USB bus and there's not a whole lot we can do about it.

Will a Monster usb cable really be a wise to get & will it really work with the Mbox?

[vocalvoodoo]

I read about a bunch of people who say the Monster USB cable did the trick as far as silencing the Mbox/Mbox2 noise from this thread....

HERE

I havent tried it yet, but am going to pick one up tomorrow hopefully. Radio Shack has them for about $13.

[gdx]

I read about a bunch of people who say the Monster USB cable did the trick as far as silencing the Mbox/Mbox2 noise from this thread....

HERE

I havent tried it yet, but am going to pick one up tomorrow hopefully. Radio Shack has them for about $13.

ok I got my Monster USB cable & everythings cool but I can still here the whine but its very very low db.I'm still waiting for an answere from digi.

[JMS40]

Anyone with this problem tried an externally powered USB hub?

[DigiTechSupt]

Again, is your Power options control panel set to 'Always On'?

Have you tried a different USB port on the computer? How about all the steps in the Setup and Troubleshooting sticky (disabling extraneous hardware and startup items, etc.)?

[PeReYrA]

One friend of my had the same problem, and he solved it by jumpering his motherboard.

The first thing he noticed was, that the leds of the mbox turned on without turn on his PC.

I dont now precisely what he changed on the motherboard configuration, but it was related to USB.

[fancy_terry]

Hi, PeReYrA. If you get a chance do you think you could ask your friend if he could make a post describing how he fixed his problem. I'd like to give it a try.

[fancy_terry]

Hi, DigiTechSupt.

Again, thank you for your help so far. I gave your suggestions a try the other night, but sadly the whine did not go away. I did a whole bunch of fiddling though, and after making many recordings of my synth in different set-ups I have gathered the following facts. I hope this new info will be enough to help you determine what my problem is. I certainly need your help, as I really don’t have even a guess as to why what is happening is happening. I’ve never come across anything like this before.

The Facts:

1. I can make what I would consider a nice and highly usable recording of my synth using my M-Audio Delta 2496 and my MOTU 1224. With the Delta 2496 I measure a noise floor of around –90 dBFS, which is sort of high, but it’s clean and the card was really inexpensive so it’s acceptable. With the 1224 it’s even lower and with both, the noise floor is the clean white noise one would expect. In contrast the whiny input of the Mbox 2 measures somewhere around –75 to –80 dBFS according to the BF Noise Meter.

2. I can play my synth into my Mackie 1202 VLZ Pro and monitor it through the headphone outs with no problem. It sounds fantastic and if I crank the headphone volume all I hear is clean white noise.

Here is where it gets strange.

3. If I now take the same setup, which again was my mono synth into the 1202 monitoring through the 1202’s headphone output with nothing else plugged into the 1202, and connect the ALT 3-4 outputs of the 1202 to the TRS line inputs of the Mbox 2 (as if I were going to record the output of the 1202 into Pro Tools) with a pair of really nice balanced cables, the whine comes back. I tried a couple different sets of cables both balanced and unbalanced and the result was the same for all of them. It’s like an on/off switch—touch the end of the cable to any of the outputs or inputs on the Mbox and I hear the whine through the headphone output of the 1202. Some how the whine seems to be traveling up the cables connecting it to the 1202.

4. If I plug the monitor outs on the Mbox 2 into one of the input pairs on the 1202 I still hear the whine, but it’s not as loud as in fact number 3. I can’t measure it though because it’s going into the 1202 and I don’t have a hardware meter.

5. I can make good, clean, whine-less recordings of my voice using an SM57 plugged into either of the XLR inputs on the Mbox 2. This makes me think that the problem isn’t the USB cable since the output of the microphone and the synth both end up traveling into my computer on the same USB cable and only one of them gets whiny.

Can you make any sense of this? I definitely can’t.

I would also like to add that I’m not pressing this issue just to be a pain. I really love Pro Tools 7 and I want it to be my DAW, but not being able to make quality recordings of my analog synth is a deal breaker. I’ve invested a lot into my synth and I use it in every track.

Thanks,

[krichards]

I wondered the same thing. When I record vocals through the exact same input, there is no whine at all. Only when my keyboard (Yamaha Motif) is plugged in. I got the Monster USB cable today and it is still there. Very upsetting that there is not a solution to this problem. I'll keep watching for more tips.

[audioboffin]

Have you guys tried either a pair of iso transformers between the synth's outputs and the mBox's inputs, or a pair of/stereo DI? Could be you are seeing a ground loop related problem. Alternatively it could be a lack of a ground at the computer end. The motherboard usually needs to connect to the chassis at one point only, and then use a 3 wire mains cable for the computer.