Morning Bit.
 
What happens with cans? At various points in the chain?
 
What happens when you swap lefts, rights, and panning?
 
Can you bypass chain elements, wire around them, to reduce signal path to as few devices as possible? if not, can you get to digital ASAP and keep it there?
 
What freqs you hearing? FT or intermittent? What can you turn off in the building that's not audio related? (Word to the wise...set an audible alarm if you kill the circuit the fridge is on...ask me how I know!)
 
I know you've probably tried all this but its Sunday, support isn't going to answer till tomorrow, and you have to be frustrated after waiting so long for an interface.

Whoa...
 
Take me a bit of time to absorb this but...
 
"Swap left and right cables, problems move?"
 
True cable swap means both ends, and I assume you mean just one end when you say the above...otherwise...

I had a similar situation a couple months back, and have another now.
 
Back then, laptop dock and tracking room are feeding a mixer in listening room, both 25 foot runs. TR to LR balanced, Lap to LR not, tho I thought it was.
 
Had hum in LR, only when Lap interface was connected to Yamaha H50's. (Also had hum in the Yamahas.) It went away when I ran balanced cables Lap to LP. Key point, Lap faders down, muted, hum still present in LR with audio feed only from TR. Pull the Yamahas, interface or monitor end, hum goes away.
 
Current situation, 2 control room PCs, mixer, and monitor on normal house circuit. Interface and outboard racks both on dedicated circuit. Yesterday, signals from main DAW clean, hum with ancilliary PC audio. Because the interfaces are lightpiped together, I can monitor from the audio outs of either interface, regardless of where the current audio is sourced. Regardless of which side I listened from, primary clean, ancilliary w 60 cycle.
 
Today, the situation is exactly reversed.
 
I haven't chased this one out yet, because I know I have to get all units onto the dedicated circuit, and when I do, there may be no issue to correct, but the point is...most of the time, in my experience anyway, hum is most noticeable on the feed that is most responsible, however, in those two instances, the noise appears at one location, when the key element producing the hum is elsewhere.
 
By itself, this kind of thinking hurts my head, and adding intermittent tendancies, and wider cause and effect loops, I have to really bear down to work thru things like this, so I hope I'm not laying any of that on you.
 
If you have the new interface isolated except for monitors, chances are you have the lay of the noise land as you describe. If however, a conventional approach doesn't correct it, and you don't decide to RMA the interface w Focusrite right away, you might try monitor cables with the shield detached on one end, and or a lift between the two.
 
In my book, hardware failures purchase karmic hassle free operation during new equipment breakin for a period equal to or longer than the utilization denial imposed by the original failure, but...
 
...Karma doesn't always read my report, or follow my recommendations.
 
Hope you clear your decks soon!
 
;-)
 
 

In a matrix here, sorting out reasons to proceed in one direction over another, and today is shot in any event, but I'm anxious to see how the Pro-40 performs here now. I don't intend to monitor directly from it, tho I suspect it has better pres than the 2626 on the main DAW.
 
I do, however, hope to be able to bring what I refer to as "second tier" feeds into tracking or the CR from it, via  the ADAT port, and I hope I don't have significant hum issues there. I'm building a collection of nice pres for vocals, acoustic guitars, anywhere the quality might be highly audible, one of which is an ISA 2 which I already love.
 
I know the Pro-40's pres won't eclipse the ISA 2, but I'd hoped they'd be nicer than the Octanes in the 2626, so once I figure outwhat needs to happen in what order and get the Pro-40 inline, I'll holler back at you and let you know how it sounds. Just for laffs, I'll hang a couple sets of monitors off it, short work with the patchbays, and let you know how noisy they are too.

That's good to hear, Chuck. I wouldn't want to go to the trouble of RMAing the unit only to find that noisy finals are typical of Focusrite interfaces. It's starting to look as though my unit is just a lemon.

I haven't used the Saffire interfaces, but the Scarlett 18i20 I have is very quiet going into my Equator monitors.  I would think the noise you're getting is not the norm.

One thing you could try is get a loop-back cable and run RMAA on it. See what kind of noise it has going straight from its outputs back to its inputs. If it is high, then you know you probably have an issue in the card. If it is low, then the issue is probably something else.

I've got two Scarlett's , an 8i6 and the 2i4. When I saw this I thought to myself, have my units been hissing this hole time and I was to oblivious to notice. I turned them both up to a pretty hi volume last night. No hiss.

I remember monitoring around 12 Oclock on the dial (straight up) about 50%. 

With my monitors set to -10dbV, and a -20db pink noise signal inserted into a track in Sonar, and the track fader and main bus fader at 0db, to get an 80 db SPL (C weighted) at 36" from the monitors, my main volume on the Scarlett is at -8 db in Mix Control.

THANK YOU, MATT!
 
I was unaware of the "active monitor pad" feature. This drops the output by 20 dB, lowering the noise in the monitors by the same amount.
 
I am now running the master volume at -12 dB (haven't recalibrated yet but it sounds about right). I wish it could drop another 10 dB, but it's still a huge improvement (well, 20 dB to be exact). And I was THIS ][ CLOSE to ordering some in-line pads, so Matt's advice has also saved me 40 bucks.
 
That's twice now Focusrite support has come through for me, and this time I hadn't even contacted them! Way to go, Matt, and way to go, Focusrite.
 
aspenleaf, are  you using the monitor pad feature, or do the Equators just have less gain? BTW, I have my ADAMs set for -10 dB as well, which is as low as they'll go. 

I should have read the manual first.  I was looking in the settings tab, which only has the buffer size, but the -20 db pad is located just left of the volume knob in mix control.  I need to use mine without the pad.  With a normal mix in Sonar, my volume knob is at the 12 o'clock position to get an 80 db SPL, which is the level I like to mix at.  83 db is a bit too loud for me.