Track 5, Day 13

[cantarina]

Happy Day 13!

What's going well? What's more frustrating that fun?

Day 13 on LJ

Comments

[alexwlchan]

(Props to croissantkatie and bessyboo for pointing this in my direction.)

Electrical hum normally comes from the fundamental frequency of AC power, which is 50 Hz in most of the world, except 60 Hz in the US. It’s a bit more complicated than that (you get harmonics of the fundamental frequency in there as well, but that’s a minor detail).

This is the crackling sound that you get if you hold speaker cable near a power line. I would guess that perhaps it’s a case of choice of USB port.

Do you have multiple USB ports on your computer? If one is near the AC line and the other isn’t, then that might account for the discrepancy. I have that problem on my laptop (which has the problem exacerbated by a metal case, woot). If you do, try only plugging your mic into the far port? Or maybe a USB extension lead from an existing port?

On one of the pod_aware podcasts, I said that the laws of physics are against fandom. I will claim this as further evidence in my favour.

Hope this helps. *g*

*has totes not taken this opportunity to muck about with his mics to reproduce electrical hum for giggles*

[alexwlchan]

Btw, if you’re willing to fiddle with parametric EQs, you can get it pretty quiet. I don’t have Audacity to hand, but a high-pass filter and a few other toys on the sound desk in the theatre I’m working in has reduced it significantly.

[girlpearl]

I do have multiple ports on my computer, but have always used the same one for the mic--incidentally, the one on the opposite side from the AC line... My laptop does have a metal case, which might be a contributing factor! It's just baffling to me that it's only an intermittent problem, grr. Not being able to reliably reproduce the problem makes it hard for me to feel confident I've eliminated it!

Thanks for the thoughts, & the tip on the high-pass filter. If it happens again, I'll give it a shot...