I7 System: High pitch sound picked by guitar PUs

All computers generate RF noise.... and the guitar is picking it up. The closer you get to the magnetic field, the stronger the signal, the louder it becomes.

My old  (first DAW) had a big old 19" CRT monitor. I had to stay 5 feet or more from it to avoid picking up hum from that thing.

The traditional hum that we associate with amps (when you touch the tip of the guitar cord) is a 60hz hum. From what you say, it is much higher in pitch. Possibly coming from the power supply in the computer, or one of the components that is radiating a large magnetic field.

The immediate solution is to stay further back from the computer box when recording. Use auto punch to allow time for you to back off to a "quiet distance" before the recording starts.

The longer term solution is to find and replace the offending part. Monitors are bad for radiating magnetic fields, especially the old tube types. the new flat screens not so much. If it's not the monitor, the next thing I would suspect would be the power supply. Even if it's new.


Did you build this system or buy is ready to go? If you built it... the power supply might be the problem if it's a cheaper unit or poorly designed..... swap it out to a different one if you have one handy. (or pick up a top of the line better one from a store with a 100% return refund guarantee)  I'm thinking if it's a cheaper built supply the filtering on it might not be as robust as it needs to be and could be "leaking" the noise directly into the computer or radiating it as a magnetic field..... neither of which would bother 99.9% of the computer users who would use it to cruise the net or do word processing.... but music recording is another issue altogether.

Hope this helps you.

I used to have a similar issue and found using an isolator between my soundcard out to monitor in solved my problem.  Here's the unit I used:

http://www.artproaudio.com/products.asp?type=90&cat=13&id=106

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

jayson

Since you have a decent power supply that is likely OK....

What kind of mouse are you using? Is it a wireless mouse?  I have heard of some folks using wireless mice and having RF get into the audio path as a high pitched wining sound.

So it was a problem in the power supply? Defective parts....

Glad you found it.... that kind of stuff will drive you nuts.

Hi,
 
(I know what follows is lenghtly but I have already tried many things to figure out the source of the problem)
 
I described this problem a couple of weeks ago but after swapping the PSU, buying a USB Mouse/keyboard to remove the "wireless" out of the picture, by leaving only my SSD drive connected (W7 Pro 64 bit), my Zelman cpu fan, an my Zotac GT240 fanless video ard (which moved to a PCIe 8x slot away from the 16x slot) I still have a High Pitch/RF "whistle" generated by my currently barebone PC when I open Sonar8.5; I also had the problem with S7 running them both on my XP Pro and W7 Pro OS.
 
Note 1: My new PSU is currently sitting outside the case
         2: I can confirm that the heatsink fan has nothing to do with since I have detached it from the heatsink (no suprises here)
 
I'm using a GA X58a-UDR3 mobo, with an Antec TP650 PSU and 3 OFZ RAM sticks (3x2G); I had to slightly overclock the RAM clock to run them at 1600MHz using the data from OFZ support team.
 
Note 1: My new PSU is currently sitting outside the case
         2: I can confirm that the heatsink fan has nothing to do with since I have detached it from the heatsink (no suprises here)
 
This high pitch/RF "whistle" has a constant pitch, appears when I start audio apps like S8.5, Goldwave (wave editor), Windows Media player, Jammer (a sw that only handles midi data) but it doesn't appear when I start HalBar, another audio related app.
 
Note: The audio card is no longer connecter, nor is it in the case; I have disabled the on-board audio and I have disconnected
          the cable connecting the case front audio connector.
         
          I tried my 2 LCD monitors in a single mode on each video port (this means 4 tests);
 
          My mobo FW is up-to-date (FB-it was at FA when I got it) and I am not overclocking the CPU clock.
 
I ear the whistle in 2 places:
 
a) In the area on the left side of the CPU just above the PCIe slots; for those of you that uses the UDR3 The whistle fades
    away when I move my ear toward the PCI slot or towards the front of the board where the sata connectors are located.
b) Inside the PSU case; we are talking about the exact same "whistle".
 
I'm really lost as I can't figure out, considering that I have already swap it, if it is the PSU that triggers what I ear inside the
case or if it is something on the board that causes the whistle on inside the PSU.
 
So 1: Has anybody, particularly users of Gigabyte mobo heard of a faulty board generating a RF signal? My previous PC is 8
          years old so I don't know "what is normal" now-a-days.
 
      2: I should have swap my PSU with another brand (any suggestions) but I was so sure I had a faulty PSU I decide to
          buy the same model has I never problem with Antec hardware in the past.
 
      3: Has anybody heard modern video cards having problems?
 
I know some of the questions I ask appear totally "stupid/impossible" but none of this makes sense anyway so I don't know
what to think anymore.
 
Shoot your comments/suggestions....I'll take everything I can get.
 
Mario