[ddots-l] Re: Recording with laptop
- From: "Andrew English \(paper music\)" <data@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:24:38 -0600
Dave,
Bryan's right.
When I was in the Navy, I worked with some serious amperage in the radio
shack. I've seen current jump several feet to find grounding and I've seen
what electricity is capabable of when it's seeking grounding. It can
literally tear the soles of off your shoes and will burn through anything
that's in between it and a ground source, including and especially your
heart. Even if it doesn't kill you, permament damage to your nervous system
could result.
This is not to mention the unfortunate people who accidentally closed a
powerful circuit with their body and there was no one around to pull them
from of the source. (Strong electrical fields can cause the body's muscles
to sieze making it impossible for you to extricate yourself.)
Don't mess around with those little electrons. They're quite powerful.
Andy English
www.papermusic.org
Music Transcription and Consultation Services
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bryan Smart" <bryansmart@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, October 20, 2009 8:11 PM
Subject: [ddots-l] Re: Recording with laptop
Hahaha, Dave.
Can we write that on your tombstone?
Listen, it has nothing to do with whether I "like it" or not. You can paint
your laptop pink and purple and cover it with Hannah Montana stickers for
all that me "liking it" has to do with anything. Its not the Bryan Smart
certification of approval you're dealing with here, but your life. Just
because you *can* touch something at this moment, without your body
completing an electrical circuit, or completing one that kills you, doesn't
mean that something is safe with the safety features bypassed. Maybe all is
fine until that day when you reach over to touch a guitar amp or powered
mixer, and the electrons, being trapped in the chassy since there is no
ground, discover in an instant that your body, via your arm and chest, is
the shortest path to ground. I really do mean it when I say that you won't
have enough time to know that you're dead. Most computer gear is low volts
and high amps. Were I to come in direct contact with the electrical bus in
my little netbook, for example, I'd find 30 times the electrical power in
amps, at any given moment, required to kill me.
Bryan
-----Original Message-----
From: ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Dave Carlson
Sent: Tuesday, October 20, 2009 12:11 PM
To: ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ddots-l] Re: Recording with laptop
Brian,
Like it or not, it works.
Dave
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bryan Smart" <bryansmart@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, October 19, 2009 23:10
Subject: [ddots-l] Re: Recording with laptop
Lifting the ground pin will only eliminate a 50hz or 60hz hum caused by
equipment that is out of alternating phase with another piece of equipment
that you're monitoring. Besides, its dangerous, and I can't believe how many
people keep suggesting this to people on lists, as if grounding pins are
silly unnecessary annoyances on high voltage equipment. When you hear hum,
it means that you have an electrical problem. You can ignore the problem,
and live with the hum, but defeating the safety features in order to remove
the hum is foolish. Odds are that your electrical problem, now without the
silly safeties to get in your way, could end up hurting or killing you if
you accidentally touch the right combination of equipment and create a fatal
circuit with your body. Those ground plug lifting adaptors are no problem on
little devices that pull fractional amounts of power, but laptops, towers,
audio gear, etc can pull between 100 to 1000 watts or more, and it is just
not safe to do that!
Having said that, you probably don't have a hum. You probably have a digital
chirping sound. If you listen closely, you'll notice that the sound of the
chirping changes when the computer is doing something like loading web pages
and opening programs.
A lot of laptops do this. It is a combination of poor electrical circuitry
and a cheap USB sound card. The digital chirp that you're hearing is
cross-talk from a poorly shielded electrical bus inside the laptop. Some USB
sound devices have canceling circuitry that partially eliminates this chirp,
but the only real way to get rid of it is to not run the sound card off of
the laptop's power. That means buying a higher quality interface with better
canceling circuitry, or, better still, buying an interface with its own
power cord. An interface with its own power cord has its own internal
transformer and power bus, and won't be as affected by the cross-talk from
the laptop's leaky power bus.
If it turns out that you do have a power problem, then get a power
conditioner. If you can't afford a power conditioner, then get an
uninterruptable power supply from an office supply place. UPSes are cheap,
and do a fairly good job at cleaning up the alternating current's waveform
for the price that you pay.
Bryan
-----Original Message-----
From: ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ddots-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Mark Dew
Sent: Monday, October 19, 2009 8:11 PM
To: ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ddots-l] Re: Recording with laptop
Steve, here's the deal.
We figured out if she unplugs the wall power supply from the laptop, the
static sound is gone.
Clear as a bell.
When she plugs the power supply back in, the sound returns.
So maybe that ground loop you spoke of a few days ago might be the answer.
Mark
At 05:17 PM 10/19/2009 +0100, you wrote:
Hi Mark,
Have you tried charging up the laptop and recording without the mains
adapter plugged in?
I use a laptop for my Studio computer and it works better without the
mains adapter.
This maybe worth a try.
Steve W
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Dew" <jmkeybd1@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, October 19, 2009 12:45 AM
Subject: [ddots-l] Re: Recording with laptop
Gord, I'll check with her and let you know.
She just said it's a usb sound card.
Steve, it's hard to tell, I think it's just a frying sound.
I think maybe the sound card is just bad.
What would you folks recamend for the laptop?
She's using a Mackie mixer, with a sm-58 shure mic.
She's just doing simple work, recording vocals along with an audio
file.
Mark
At 04:28 PM 10/18/2009 -0400, you wrote:
The mic in may be only mono. Also, you really don't want to use the
laptop's onboard sound for recording audio. What usb interface does
she have?
Gord
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Dew" <jmkeybd1@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, October 17, 2009 12:55 PM
Subject: [ddots-l] Recording with laptop
Hello folks.
Here's the problem.
I have a friend who has just a laptop and a mackie 8 channel mixer.
She has only a mic input on the laptop.
The audio siggnel is too hot.
She did perchased a u s b sound card that has a line in jack.
When she records using the line in there is a static sound she
can't get rid of.
I believe the sound card is bad.
The mic input on the laptop itself is ok, except too hot.
My question is, is there such a thing as an audio cable that would
restrict the audio level?
I had her to turn down the mic input on the laptop but with no results.
Any ideas would be welcome.
Cheers!
Mark
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