Hey everyone, I was wondering if you guys could help me out with some difficulties I'm having with digital recording equipment. I'm using a Zoom ZH4N Handy Portable Digital Recorder and an Avid Mbox Mini w/ Pro Tools LE. I recorded some stuff to the Zoom field recorder a few months ago and just got around to transferring the files to my computer. When I listened to them after transferring to my computer, I noticed there were very faint voices talking in the background, and I thought that maybe I hadn't used a direct input when recording and perhaps the recorder picked up noise from the tv or something. But then I plugged in my Mbox and opened up Protools to record some stuff from my bass guitar and I kept getting noise in the background, and I thought it was just a bad connection to my bass, but when I turned the gain and volume up all the way, I noticed it wasn't static, but a radio station. I could literally listen to the radio station through my Mbox's monitor headphone jack, and if I placed my hand on top of the Mbox, the radio station signal would increase and get louder. Anyone know what could cause this? I've never noticed this kinda thing before and I talked to a friend that's majoring in Audio Production and he hasn't ever heard of that problem. Any help is greatly appreciated!
this shit just happens sometimes..magnetic shielding helps in some cases.. so you can try one of these on the cable from the interface to your recorder and maybe even on one from mixer to interface... the place i started making music at picked up the chicago south side r&b/bs commercial hip hop station, even just on our guitar amps
in short: its RF interference, a google search will tell you far more than i can about it's exact causes...sometimes little things like the position of your cables can fix it or make it far worse
Last edited by e.s.c. (Jul 13, 2013 8:34 pm)
I've fixed this problem in a couple guitar pedals with aluminum enclosures. In both cases, I opened the enclosure and covered the inside fully with electrical tape. Not sure if your problem is the same, but if your hand on the case seems to exacerbate the problem, it's pretty cheap and might be worth a try. Good luck!
(+1 for the filtering shields above, those are a good idea AM radio or not)
Last edited by Fudgers (Jul 13, 2013 8:43 pm)
You may consider different cables or different cable lengths, or compressing the audio to use the radio on purpose if the result is illegible or not copyrighted... Or noisegates, etc.
My experience with the issue is from guitars...
I think you can wrap stuff in aluminium foil to block EMF.
I think you can wrap stuff in aluminium foil to block EMF.
And as a bonus it'll look incredibly stylish
and it won't get freezer burn
Last edited by Cooshinator (Jul 14, 2013 2:15 am)