I almost feel like forgetting the mic and going with an XLR to USB converter, but if it’s the system…
Since we are pretty sure it’s power supply noise, a good quality [u]USB Audio Interface[/u] that’s not USB powered should be an improvement.
You could try buying a regulated “linear” power supply to replace the one that came with the hub. A linear power supply isn’t necessarily quieter than a switching supply. It’s possible to build a good power supply either way… A switching supply is more efficient (it doesn’t get as hot and it doesn’t waste as much power), and its typically smaller.
If you get noise from a from a linear supply it’s usually 50/60Hz power line hum. Nose from a switching supply tends to be higher-frequency noise with lots of different frequency components (more like “whine”). I assuming the power supply that came with the hub is a switching design, since you’re still getting that “switching noise”.
I was searching online to see if I could find a USB power filter… I found [u]this[/u], but it’s priced for “audiophiles” (It cost’s more than the microphone) and I have no idea if it works.
A USB filter won’t do anything if the bus is introducing the noise. It would be clean all the way to the USB port, then get introduced as soon as it hits the bus. Same thing with a USB audio interface–might be the best mic and audio interface in the world, but as soon as it hits the system, it’s going to add electronic interference. The noise, silence, static, and record fails are present on two different systems (a laptop and a desktop); one with battery power, one with wall socket power. Doesn’t seem like a laptop on battery would introduce the exact same failures if power was the issue. I have an ax1500i. Look it up on jonnyguru. I have no experience with linear PSUs; as far as switching PSUs go, it’s as good as it’s going to get.
I tested a regular poor-quality Plantronics 1/8" mic on the same system. It has a similar electronic noise. I’m hoping it’s just system noise–the idea that I’m being exposed to noise frequencies inaudible to the human ear makes me uncomfortable. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5zIz1YSh_e7eGRzc0RRbkNYN28/view?usp=sharing
I don’t know where to start with elimination of the whine; even if I get the Yeti Pro mic RMA’d, if it’s something wireless in the room causing the interference, it’s going to be present with whatever USB, XLR, or 1/8" mics. I can’t turn off the neighbor’s electricity, their cell phones, their wi-fi, or turn off the giant Super Doppler 32 ™ weather radar that is less than a couple of miles from where I live, or turn off radio signals, etc. I have a wireless printer, a phone that isn’t turned on, a 1080p screen, a keyboard, the system, a wired mouse, a game pad…I don’t know how I’m supposed to get a motherboard to not introduce interference at some point in the data handling. The Yeti Pro has a built in analog to digital system–it should be digital by the time it gets to the USB port; should either be all noise or none, not this irregular varied set of glitches.
Got the mic RMA’d through Amazon. I’ll update to this post once Amazon has refunded my shipping (they have an allowance up to about $8.21 for shipping; USPS ended up costing about $6.28; UPDATE: I got the new mic within a few days of the return request, and sent out the bad mic on January 26; I got my refund on the same day the mic arrived at Amazon receiving on January 28. Amazon refunded $8.14, which means I made $1.86 off of the Yeti failing; given the amount of time I put into dealing with the failure, I can’t recommend buying failed mics on sale and returning them for new ones as a career, though.); people should know whether or not Amazon is reliable as a distributor and fulfillment center, it’ll save others frustration when it comes to diagnosing product defects versus ambient EMI or cable EMI.
Here’s a sample of the new Blue Yeti Pro: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5zIz1YSh_e7VjVwaFlFNHlKYWs/view?usp=sharing
I have the mic volume at 100 in Windows and Audacity; the gain knob is at about 57%; pattern is cardiod (going to set it to stereo soon). Output at 0dB, extra safe buffer, ASIO Buffer size at 8192. Connected via the same Wrench SuperSpeed 7 that the other defective mic was connected with. I have the mic resting on a Bounce static sheet on top of a cotton towel. Using a clean nylon/polyester (probably mostly polyester) dress sock as a pop filter.
I think I’m figuring out how this works. The microphones (and it’s always microphones) that try to use the USB five volts either “raw” or minimally filtered have frying mosquitoes in the sound.
That clip was taken with a $13 external soundcard.
There was a recent posting from someone who generated a perfect noise sample by just plugging a cheap microphone into his computer to illustrate a separate problem he was having.
If the 5 volts is actually processed through a regulator or voltage regenerator, the noise vanishes. Doing that is expensive, so only the cheaper microphones and soundcards have the whine.
If you have a higher end USB soundcard that supplies 48 volt phantom power to a top quality analog microphone, internal voltage processing is required and I bet you have no such problem. I don’t think we’ve ever had complaints of a Scarlett 2i2 whining.
No, it’s not coming from the USB bus directly. Once the show is digital, it’s digital. Digital damage is usually limited to dropouts, clicks, pops, gaps and other instances of missing bits.
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It will also be useful if you can provide a short (3 or 4 seconds) audio sample in WAV format that includes a couple of seconds of the noise on its own, and a second or two of your voice or whatever you are recording. The audio sample should be totally unprocessed - exactly as it sounds when you make the recording.
See here for how to post an audio sample: https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/how-to-post-an-audio-sample/29851/1
That’s because we spent most of the time trying to figure out what it is. It can kill performances and yet we had no idea exactly where it’s coming from.
We do now. The battery voltage coming up the USB connection is too “dirty” to run a microphone amplifier directly. The higher end microphones, mixers and MicPres have extra circuitry inside to purify the battery voltage so it doesn’t make noise — at extra cost. I do have a tag for this. If your device has 48 volt phantom power, it has the extra circuitry.
What threw us for along time was the magic nature of the problem. If you do have it, it changes all the time. It changes with the computer maker, whether the computer is on batteries or not, the length of the USB cable, who made the USB cable, and etc. Nothing to nail down and fix. If, per chance you don’t have the problem, you can’t make it happen. So I didn’t have it for a long time until I found that cheap MicPre which would do it.
Flynwill is testing a physical add-on that you put in the USB line with the microphone and most if not all the problems go away. The problem is so wide-spread that people have made ways to fix it — at extra cost.
I heard back from hifimeDIY and using my Frying Mosquitoes sound clip as an example, they said it should not be difficult to get rid of that with the little USB Isolator adapter. Mine is in shipping.
Did you have any luck? I found this post via some angry Googling shortly after buying my Yeti, and have been waiting (eagerly!) to hear how it turned out for you.
I have my isolator here, but haven’t had time to mess with it. I have the additional problem of only creating the problem by using a special combination of equipment. Unlike you, I didn’t just plug a microphone in and it started whining. I had to create the problem. Now I have to create the problem again and then make sure I can get rid of it.
The up side of all this is flynwill knows how to take it apart if I want to change the electronics around.
I connected one of my Startech USB HeadSet adapters (mono microphone and stereo headphone) and got the whine sound in the recording. I put the USB isolator in the system and got almost no improvement.
There is a sound change, but it’s only 2.0dB by actual measurement. You can’t hear a change that small. I had to go looking for it with the Audacity measuring tools to make sure it did anything at all.
So no, we’re not going to get you out of trouble with a small USB isolator/adapter.
There is one other “device” available that has a very good chance of eliminating the whine. But now we’re back in the land of soldering irons. It comes as a naked circuit board wrapped in static tissue and you are expected to make a little box for it and design, buy and install a separate power supply.
All that is workable if you have your own drill press, but most people buy a Yeti assuming it’s going to be plug, play, and make a podcast.
It’s a joke on another venue that people contract to create a podcast and then unwrap the Yeti the day before the show is due. Scary, but not that unusual. Cellphones have spoiled everybody rotten. There was one contributor that tried to do the performance into his iPad. Everybody knows there’s an app for that.
In addition to not curing the “normal” problem, I think I found a second way to get the whine different from the one we know about. So I made it worse.
Have a happy day.
Just to cover it, did you contact either the supplier/store or Blue? There is the possibility that neither one knows this is happening.
What device is that, out of curiosity? I may get super ambitious…
That’s about what I did!
Marketing: “Hey, can you order this mic for us, it’s cheap and really good and we want to use it for some quick recordings.”
Me: “Sure thing, order placed!” mic arrives
Marketing: “Teehee, we don’t actually need it. But keep it around, we might use it!” into the closet it goes…until 3 months later when someone remembers we have it and asks for it
And here we are.
I haven’t yet, primarily because I read a few stories that more or less said “that’s the way it is and Blue says it’s your machine”. I will, though, and see if they have recommendations or ideas.
I think the suppliers are depending on the Yeti users not talking to each other.
“Does your Yeti fail ACX AudioBook because of that whiney noise? Mine does, too!”
“Hey, wait. Mine does that!!”
“No foolin’? I wondered about that stupid noise.”
And etc.
We know what it is. These devices use the pure battery voltage in the USB cable to run everything. The problem is, it’s not pure. It frequently has trash running around on it and that’s the trash that gets into your show. None of the higher end microphones, mixers and adapters do this because they all have electronics to clean up the trash. That’s the electronics that cost a little more money.
I use a rule of thumb that if the device says “48 volt Phantom Power” in the instructions, it’s probably fine. The same electronics that makes the 48 volts, cleans up the trash. It’s harder with microphones. There you have to go with historical data: Nobody ever complains about a top quality Doobli-Doo® Microphone, but there are lots of complaints from Yeti owners.
Blue pushes you off to a computer problem because technically, it’s true, but you’re not likely to buy a new machine just to get your $130 usd Yeti to work, and it may not help if you do. So that leaves you in a hole. It’s actually worse than you think, because ACX would just as soon you not use Noise Reduction, and they said so.
So for only about the cost of your microphone (after adding power supply, cables and shipping and not counting assembly and testing), you can have a working Yeti.
Neither of us bought one of these yet. $48 usd is a little steep for a casual purchase, particularly since neither of us has sound damage in a show. I had to go out of my way to make the whine and flynwill had to use scientific instruments to find his.
