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Church PC audio to sound board mysterious squeeling.
Hello, Im actually posting this during our church service.
Im experiencing some super annoying squeeling and scratching noises when we play any audio (mainly videos with audio). The thing is, when we do our practises before services, the audio is perfect. However, it seems when the room is filled with ppl, thats when it happens. We’ve deduced that most likely it’s cell phones affecting the connection between the comp headphone out to the board’s 1/4″ input.
I dont know what to do to remove this. We’re playing wonderful videos and the crappy audio is just horrible. Any thoughts to shield or remove the cell phone interferen e?
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3 Replies
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Unless you are using balanced (or balancing) connections into the mixing console, outside interference has a MUCH higher chance of occurring.
Are you able to post a sample of what you’re speaking of? Surely, if it comes out of the main mix, a recording should yield a viable recording of your issues.
Many times the codecs used to compress the video and audio are sub-par or the settings are not dialed in properly to allow for smaller size w/o the artifacts associated with compression (pixelation, the swirly sound, etc.). If you ask me, I say never compress any audio at less than 320kbps if it’s an mp3 format.
Wolf
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My guess is that it’s the computer’s headphones output that is getting the interference, so what I’d try is getting hold of a simple USB audio adapter, then run a long enough USB cable from the computer to it so that you can place it close to the ‘board and use the shortest possible length of analogue audio cable to connect it in.
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I’ve investigated in a Peavey USB-Powered Audio Playback Device like the one linked below.
I’m sure this would most likely fix the problem. However, I’ve also decided to give it one more try with a different solution. If you would treat the computer as an instrument, I would like to try a direct box. It simply turns an unbalanced 1/4″ unbalanced to a balanced XLR, with possible ground loop removal. This seems to be a promising solution. I have a 4″x1/8″ cable, and would connect it from the computer to a direct box with the appropriate adapter. Shortest unbalanced cable run as far as I know. Then, run an XLR to the sound board from there. Hopefully that would get rid of it.
I also have a 1/8″ to L/R Phono as a backup, but I don’t think that would work as well as I’d like it to be…that’s unbalanced as far as I know…
I just hope it works. If not, well, the Peavey isn’t expensive and I’m very sure that would fix the problem…
Thanks for the suggestions! If it happens again this week, I’ll make sure to post a recording of the interference to see if anyone out there can more accurately diagnose it.
Thanks!
Ryan
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