Sudden Pops and Crackles

Hi Nick,

I’ve taken sometime to get back to you, because I wanted to be thorough.

The crackles and pops that I mentioned I’m getting from my unit appear randomly. In other words, they are not specific to a particular preset or group of presets.

In answer to your other questions:

I am using the ‘default’ routings. I haven’t ammended anything from the defaults (to the very best of my knowledge) since taking the H8000FW out of the box. I’ve only been auditioning presets and changing paramaters within presets.

This goes for default gain settings, too.

As I said, different presets can give me ‘noise’ – sometimes a popping noise upon loading or a moment after loading, and sometimes crackles while playing a preset at far below clipping levels. Although sometimes the crackles seem to be brought on by the forcefulness of an instruments ‘attack’, as I mentioned before.

If the meters' default setting is to main output, then my unit’s meters are set to main output and the answer is NO, I don’t seem to see the noise in the H8000’s meters, except on one occassion, when I started getting quite alot of hissing from the unit suddenly, without any input going into it, and all the meters peaked.

I have a very simple audio setup. I’m using two audio sources (an Earthworks piano mic and a Yamaha stage piano) into a small Mackie mixer that I use for keyboards on stage. Both audio sources give the same noise problems. The quality of my audio cables is good – they are all brand new – although not the absolute most expensive.

I have not yet upgraded the unit to the latest version of the software.

Would the fact that I am going from the mixer aux channel one out (stereo) into a single analog in (channel one) on the H8000FW cause a problem?

Could an unclean mains electricity supply cause this problem?

I realize these things are hard to pinpoint remotely, but if you could let me know what you think so I can get this thing resolved I'd appreciate it.

Thanks.

Regards,

Lee Sloan
 

Nick,

So far, I've now observed three different 'noise-related' problems, and now with the H8000's meters set to output, these ARE recorded by the level meters.

1) Two presets ALWAYS drive the meters to peak upon loading, with accompanying loud pops, regardless of which of the four analog inputs I use: Fractal Vortex and Helix Loops.

2) The more random pops I've noted occuring (so far as I've had time to investigate and write them down) with the following presets: Filtered Delays, Amp-u-lation, Bad Bad Thing and Jan's Reso.

What happens with the above is a single popping/crackling noise when the first audio signal is received – from an instrument – but nowhere near at peak levels. Subsequent audio signals don't seem to cause the problem.

3) The sudden hissing sound that I mentioned before, accompanied by all meters peaking (don't remember the preset that was loaded when this happened). This has only happened once.

I've also noted another issue, which is that some presets don't load immediately and then suddenly 'kick in', or on some occassions they don't load at all.

With all due respect, I'm a musician who spends alot of time on the road and I don't have an inordinate amount of time to devote to isolating these problems, which at this point suggest to me that someone qualified needs to test whether my unit is faulty.

I'm based in Europe.

Thanks.

Lee