Can't Sample Breaks Because Of Hum

[LMNO]

I can't sample drum breaks because there's no background sound and I can hear a hum. You can hear it here:
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/5/whosvincemusic.htm

Once I drop the needle there is a hum. As the sample fades out there's the hum again.

I use:
Sound Blaster PCI512
Stanton SMX-201 Mixer- Which has a preamp built in
Numark TT-500
Numark CX1 Cart
Sony V-150 Headphones

I've always had this problem even when my cart was brand new. My windows volumes are set properly. My EQ gains on the mixer are set at 0. The sample was recorded at optimal levels with no clipping.

What do I need to do to fix this? Thanks.

 

[MR_P]

I used to get a hum and it was cause the decks were not earthed / grounded properly. Try grounding via your Amp instead of the mixer to see if it reduces or changes. (When I was getting this hum i was using a KAM mixer and even though there is a place to earth your decks on it, the actual grounding was pretty poor. Using a Vestax now and its grounding is heavy so no need to earth via the Amp.)

Also, are your speakers near your decks or on the same table as your decks? Maybe they are causing some feedback to add to the hum.. unlikely but possible!

Hope this helps bro!

Oh yeah, cant hear the example as its not been cleared by the soundclick dudes yet!

 

[LMNO]

I don't have an amp or speakers. Right now it is grounded to the mixer. All I use is the Sony MDR-v150 head phones.

 

[MR_P]

Hmmmm.... Interesting.

Ok, I think it could be an idea to try grounding to another ground or grounding your mixer better. Your could literally (if your in the UK, I dont know other plugs) run a wire from the point where you ground the decks to the mixer into a plug and ground on there.

Thinking about it, there could be a slim possibility that the hum is being generated from your PC, I think its more likely to be your earthing but check your record levels on the PC and whether your interface to the PC is generating this hum...


Hope this helps!

P

 

[LMNO]

Ok, I tried adding an extra wire to ground each end. Couldn't hear a difference. If I tap the table my mixer LED lights up...

Know of any more elaborate grounding schemes?

 

[Aeast]

could just be a bad connection or faulty wire somewhere

 

[LMNO]

Yeah, my next step is to change all my wires.

 

[groovesaga]

I don't know much about earthing so I can't give you any input on that unfortunately.
Something you can do until you get that fixed is to wash your samples with some plugin. There are plenty of them to remove humming, noise, crackles etc. "Sonic foundry noise reduction" for instance.

Good luck and I'm curious about your solution with grounding.

 

[LMNO]

I was able to get the hum lower by tweaking my audio drivers. The AC97 volume slider was up to the max so it made everything louder than it was supposed to be.

I am still getting a hum though. It is faint, but is noticable when I trigger a drum sample. It goes:
Boomzzzz Bapzzzz Boomzzzz Boomzzzz Bapzzzz

I will look into some noise reduction tools. I am wondering though if they would mess up the sample? Since the hum is a low frequency, it might remove some of the bass from the drum sample.