No matter what I do... STATIC

Sup guys.

It seems my house is screwed... no matter what I do.. unplug etc I get static at certain points of production. I run my Korg, MPC 1000 and Casio keyboard into my MRS 1608 Zoom. The Korg and MPC are fine but I get static when plugging in my Casio keyboard ( does not have a ground prong)

I'm going to say it's a grounding issue with my house possibly as the electronic builds of these houses off base all vary here in Japan.

Today after work im going to attempt to run a earth ground outside my house and ground out my Zoom. When I record to the Zoom its fine but when I burned a cd the other day had sharp pulsating static all over it.

Also just using my computer speakers, they yield a pattern of static that repeats over and over. This is getting to be very annoying and is halting production in a major way.

Are there any transformer solutions I can look into that would plug into my wall outlets and clean up things?

out of curiosity, what type of computer... and which casio keyboard model is it?

biggamehit wrote:Are there any transformer solutions I can look into that would plug into my wall outlets and clean up things?

Here's something that probably will cure your ills G. Look into using a UPS and a decent RFI/EMI power distributor.

My setup is branched from a UPS source like this, then fed to rackmounted emi/rfi power sources.

This helps to eliminate grounding issues & anything else that you don't want filtered into your recordings.

It's worth having rather than not having it at all.

not sure what you mean by static. if it's interference, then use shielded cabling.
if it's a ground loop hum, then you need to check the house is grounded properly and put all equipment on the one circuit. if hum persists, then work through each piece of gear and check that it is properly grounded.

All of my PC's are custom built. Also have a MAC Pro At my last place of residence this never happened.

The Casio is a CTK-2000 that I got for 20 dollars here in japan. I just use it mainly as a controller and sometimes for some of the sounds.


I run UPS's on my computer ill definitely look into it for my music equipment. Also yes it more along the lines of interference not static... sorry for the choice of words.

Thanks for the input bro's

what dab said, power conditioner is a must. small upc backup system wouldnt hurt either in case of power surge


also make sure you using balanced cables, and as much as possible try to keep audio cables away from electric.

half of my setup is plugged in to power conditioner no problem, other half that's connected to reg power strip and I get static in my monitors and they're connected to reg power strip. but Im also using unbalanced cuz I bought them when I knew jack shit about cables and back then more gear meant better beats

If it's the casio keyboard causing the interference then try unplugging it and running it off of batteries. See if that stops the problem... if so then you know where the problem lies... the CTK2000 runs of batteries.

biggamehit wrote: I burned a cd the other day had sharp pulsating static all over it.

If it has a pattern to it, it def. isnt a ground hum (60 Hz). If it sounds kinda digital and jittery (the noise) it may be a crappy clock on the motherboard of your PC. HP Laptops were notorious for this (I had 3 dudes bring in their hp laptops into a music store I worked in, all had the same problem.)

If its a consistent hum, the think about grounding...You can test the circuit with one of these:



The socket will be different in Japan, but they should have the same product. Lights tell you if there is, and what kind of fault is in your system.

I have this same problem.. whenever i plug my mpc or dj mixer into my mac (or the mixing desk that is connected to my mac).

It sounds jittery and electrical, almost like you can hear the insides of the mac working.

I dont think its the circuits though as when i plug my yamaha mixing desk in - no sound. I then plugged my iphone into the mixing desk with a mini jack cable and put the phone onto charge in the same plug socket board as the mpc and no sound could record fine - not that i want to record off my phone.

As soon as i plug my dj mixer (vestax pmc08) or the mpc 2500 into the mixing desk it makes the f'in noise.. this has happened in the past with a mates laptop and i though it was just a problem with the laptop.

At the moment im just resampling internally on the mpc and transferring with usb..

...It even makes the noise when i plug the mpc into the mac with just the USB cable..

Do u rekon its possible that BOTH my vestax pmc and my mpc2500 have some sort of electrical problem..??

for that computer glitchy staticky noise ... try plugging in the computer to a completely different plug that is on a different circuit from the one the music gear is on...

if it is a laptop, what happens when it's running off the battery? when the plug is disconnected it wont be sending that through the power line.

mr_debauch wrote:if it is a laptop, what happens when it's running off the battery? when the plug is disconnected it wont be sending that through the power line.

This fixed ALL of those 3 dudes problems. You just cant run long recording sessions, which blows.

jonestown massacre wrote:

mr_debauch wrote:if it is a laptop, what happens when it's running off the battery? when the plug is disconnected it wont be sending that through the power line.

This fixed ALL of those 3 dudes problems. You just cant run long recording sessions, which blows.

true, but for the time being... if that helped they will have to keep it short and sweet

One dude bought 2 extra laptop batteries (his laptop was like $3000 at the time.) and rotated them on a per need basis. Retarded, I know.


You could also try using a different power supply for the laptop and see if the noise goes away.

well the other thing if you really want to do it that way is... you could get a battery backup.. you know the type they use for servers etc... some will last 4 hours even.

He could get some solar panels, a dc to ac converter, some marine batteries and a rectifier.....off the grid, baby!