Hi all
I invested in the Steinberg/Line 6 guitar recording thing where you got Cubase, an interface, and Helix Native, and so far it's been quite disappointing. First of all the first interface blew up, and since I've been struggling to get some good sounds out of the Helix Native especially with the massive volume jumps between clean and drive sounds. I don't get much playing time so it's quite frustrating to have to keep twiddling with gates (which cut your sound off) and levels and eq just to get a sound that isn't noisy as hell (and is still rubbish, just less noisy)
I'm getting a high pitched noise that I mainly get when playing through a computer, although my (much better than Helix) Digitech modelling unit gets it also if i've left my computer monitor switched on. But the noises in the following video are not with a monitor, just with my laptop on:
Is there a way around this? If not I may have to go back to cheap mini pedals and try to find a way to feed to my studio style speakers or headphones (amps are too loud for house) or find a longer midi cable to try and use the GSP again instead.
As you can probably hear on that video I have an input gate on fairly high which is cutting the notes off awfully but also the noise is clearly still there
Guitar is a Mustang with Lace Sensor pickups. Windows laptop (lenovo), steinberg UR22C interface into Cubase 11 Artist. I get the same with my crappy dodgy DIY SG style with humbuckers
Thank you
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Following on from your thread here, did the repair shop ever give you an explanation for why the laptop may have blown the first interface?
'cos if the laptop has previous history of being dodgy and it's now giving you sounds like that, I'd still be looking at the laptop. My laptop sits in the kitchen and runs Helix Native too: ain't never heard it buzz like that.
Edit, I didn't answer the question. But then neither did the repair people, they said it would cost too much to work it out which I assumed meant they couldn't be bothered
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When I (absent mindedly) connected my monitor speakers to my audio interface using unbalanced leads.
Using single coil pickups, picking up noise from my display monitor. Turning the guitar away from the monitor can help with that.
Connecting the unbalanced jack-out from my Helix LT to the unbalanced jack-in on my audio interface, whilst also having my Helix LT connected to my computer by USB.
Cheers
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Using the GSP1101 with all effects bypassed, into the interface via an xlr, and then added Helix Native to that, and it sounded better... Not great, but adequate. To be honest the Digitech with its effects still sounded better than the Helix ones. If only Digitech did something with the routing of Helix...
So does that mean it's a DI I need really perhaps, who knows
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Btw. I use Helix Native for pretty much all of my guitar recordings these days.
Bizarre
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Also, the noise is reduced by reducing the Bias setting within the Amp+Cab block in Helix Native.
I had a desktop PC that was very noisy on audio inputs when I used a firewire interface - the noise floor was around -80dB, but multiplied across 16 tracks. You could hear clicking from the mouse moving, as well as constant digital hash. The fix? I scraped away the powder coating where the Firewire PCI card touched the case. That meant the ground noise could get into the case rather than finding the firewire cable as the easiest path to ground.
On a laptop, there might not be a lot you can do about it.
Bandcamp
Spotify, Apple et al
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If so, you can fix it by connecting it to an amp that's earthed - it doesn't even have to be switched on, if you don't want the sound in the room. Just connect any spare output (or even input, it doesn't actually matter) to the amp when it's plugged into the wall.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
I've grabbed a cheap DI and am charging the battery for my wireless thing to see if either of those will make a difference as well. I'm not confident to buy a new computer because I'll probably just end up buying something with the same problems again, so hopefully either using the Digitech or the DI/Wireless thing will do the trick and I can just accept that I don't have the brain power to use Helix
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Very noisy, even the mouse movement picked up through the monitors. The fix was incredibly simple. I had a little five-quid USB splitter lying around, connected that to the PC's USB, then connected the Focusrite to the splitter. Noise gone. No idea of the electrical logic to that, but the extra "layer" sorted it instantly (and the Focusrite is fab).