What kind of hum/buzz am I dealing with here?

[scottyp49]

I've just changed rooms and now I'm trying to troubleshoot my Helix's newfound noise problems. I can't seem to figure out how to kill this buzz. I uploaded a video of the demonic presence:

 

The Beast

 

So what do you folks think? Is it 60Hz? 120Hz? Any ideas on how to kill it? I've tried moving to different outlets, separating the audio interface from the Helix in terms of plug location, ground lift on the Helix, turned off all the lamps, ran it through a power conditioner.. I'm going nuts over this.

 

Also worth noting that the Helix makes loud crack/pop sounds on power up that u don't recall happening before.

 

Please help :{

[soundog]

What is your complete audio path? Include all cable, computer, interface, speaker/amp info. Also any lighting stuff (fluorescent? Tibetan salt crystal?)

 

Example:  Guitar -----> 1/4" guitar cable ----> Helix ----> ? --------> ? ---------->

[scottyp49]

Guitar --> 1/4" guitar cable --> Helix Guitar In --> SPDIF Out --> 3' SPDIF Cable --> SPDIF In on Antelope Discrete 8 interface --> Monitor Out L/R -- Monster Stereo 1/4" TRS --> 2x JBL 6" Active Studio Monitors

 

All lighting in the room is turned off, including salty bois (lol). No florescent lighting in the room.

[DunedinDragon]

Your description makes it sound like there's some form of grounding problem in the outlets.  Alternatively there may be some form of interference on the circuit which may not even come from that room, but is just on the same circuit.  You might want to try putting everything on a power conditioner just to be safe.

[scottyp49]

I guess the outlet is probably the culprit.. My house was originally built in 1949 and God knows what was or wasn't upgraded properly before I bought it.

 

Until I can get that fixed, I've made due by running the guitar direct into my old dbx 266xl for additional gating and then into the Helix guitar input.

[soundog]

Do you have the proper  slave/master setup for your SPDIF? It is probably either a SPDIF digital mismatch, or a grounding issue.

[DunedinDragon]

I understand the problem.  My house was built in 1940.  I ended up doing a massive renovation and had it re-wired.  The problem is that any house that old wasn't run with grounded lines to the wall sockets.  In most cases they replaced the wall sockets with 3 prong outlets, but the grounding prong isn't connected to anything.  To make matters worse in many cases, such as my house, the electrical service itself had no grounding to the earth.  You can easily check this with an outlet tester which is very cheap.

The implications of this is that if you live in an area with lightning strikes or potential surges, it will totally fry any digital electronics because the surge has no place to go...which these days is pretty much all electronics in your house.  It's certainly worth checking just to be safe.

[scottyp49]

17 minutes ago, soundog said:

Do you have the proper  slave/master setup for your SPDIF? It is probably either a SPDIF digital mismatch, or a grounding issue.

 

I have my Antelope Discrete 8 as the clock, "Word clock In" set as the clock source on the Helix. Terminator is on.