Audacity Forum

Hi everyone i am new to these forums. I already made a thread like this on a couple of different websites but nobody knew a solution or the prob..

I make youtube videos and because of that I bought the Blue Yeti as it has amazing quality for recording commentaries. Untill recently everything was fine,
I was using my Yeti on my motherboard (at the time it was an MS-7728 motherboard) and everything was great. The next thing i upgraded was a popfilter and
also that worked fine. Now comes the weird part..

After buying a new motherboard and a cpu to upgrade my pc, my mic started recording extremely weird high pitched noises.
The new motherboard is a Gigabyte Z77 D3H, with the motherboard i upgraded my psu and CPU. The only thing missing is a case
to build the components into. Right now they are on laying on the ground but everything seems to work fine.

Also my yeti is picking up a little background nosie which is completely fine but this annoying high pitch noise doesn't belong there.. I don't know where it's coming from.
I tried plugging in my USB cable in to a different port but that didn't work either. I tried to up the gains and that made me get rid of some of the High Pitch noises but also added more
Background noise, the Buzzing noise. I don't know where it's coming from.. Could it be because my pc components are not build into a case atm? That seems unlogical..

Please give me some advice as I am clueless what to do and how to fix it. I'll be getting a pc case next month and I can't just make no videos for a month...

Here are a couple of audio samples: Some PC Specs:
OS: Windows 7 64bit
CPU: Intel Core i7 3770
PSU: Corsair CX600M
GPU: Nvidia GTX 680
MB: Gigabyte Z77 D3H

The sound is probably due to electrical interference.
If your new computer parts are not yet installed in a case, try putting them in a case and see if that reduces the noise.

That's one possibility. The other is your new motherboard has ratty 5 volts supplied to the USB ports. Audio from the microphone to the computer is digital and fairly robust, but making the audio inside the microphone is analog and subject to interference problems.

There is electronic processing inside the microphone and the options are making you put a physical battery in your microphone (some microphones do this) or use the 5 volt battery supplied by the computer on the USB cable. Sizzling or whistling noises could mean the 5 volts isn't pure, clean and filtered -- that it has computer noise on it.

The computer cut corners because most USB devices don't care, and the microphone cut corners because filtering is expensive and heavy. Your old motherboard was very good about this, the new one maybe less so.

You can work around this with a wall-powered USB hub. Send the microphone through that and the noise should vanish. The 5 volts comes from the very well filtered wall power supply and not the computer. You can't use the hub for anything else.

Koz

Thanks for the replies, guys. I build everything into a case now and the sound is still present. No difference. I also have a blue Snowball that I tested but there is no Pitch noices on the Snowball.. Weird. It only occurs on the yeti. I could try a USB hub and plug my mic into that but how would I plug that into my pc? I have no clue how a usb hub works.. Does the usb hub also have a usb cable? How would you connect it to the PC?

Yes a USB Hub connects to the computer with its own USB lead. Basically a USB Hub is a "splitter" for USB. They are usually used so that you can connect more USB devices than you have USB ports. In this case you should not connect other devices to the USB Hub, only the microphone. The reason that Koz suggested using a powered USB Hub is so that your microphone will be running from the Hub's power supply and not from the PC power supply.

If you don't yet have a powered USB Hub, it may be worth trying the mic on a different computer. If the noise is different (particularly if the noise is much less) then that would indicate that the noise is electrical interference coming down the USB power line. If that is the case then a powered USB Hub may improve the situation. (If possible, try before you buy).

I've had same problem as you and recently connected my Blue Yeti throug powered usb hub but still had some notifiable high pitch noise. After this i did some research and it seems noise loudness depends from usb cable length.
Here i've tested 3 usb cables, i'll attach recorded sound and frenque analyze if someone also want to investigate this.

1. Standart USB cable i got with blue yeti (near 2m): I actually can hear this noise comming from my PSU i think, maybe i am mistaken. This noise comming right after i connecting Blue Yeti with this cable.

2. 50cm usb cord Better

3. 15cm usb cord Much better, i actually can't hear any noise now, but cable is really short.

http://imgur.com/a/LNsU6 - here pictures of frenque analyze for all tests, can't attach them due to file count limitations.
Maybe someone can tell me what could be a noise source.

We know what the source is. It's the housekeeping noise generated by the computer. Computers, particularly the video card, are insanely noisy. Frying mosquitoes. It's pretty easy to spot. On some machines, it even changes slightly when you do something, the screen changes or the hard drive spins up or down.

It's one of the reasons built-in soundcards have problems. If you examine the instructions for your new internal soundcard, it will almost certainly tell you to install it as far from the video card as you can.The question is how it's getting into the cable.

I wonder if manufacturers have started making USB cables without shielding. It would certainly make them cheaper!

Koz

OK, if you're up for testing. Put the longer cable back on. Announce where you are in the tests and then be quiet for a couple of seconds. "I'm next to the video cable [pause]." "Back of the monitor [pause]."

Start the recording and make a loop (or two) of the USB cable and move the loop closer and further away from the computer. Wave it around the cable leading to the monitor. You might even try this trick with the microphone itself.

Grip the USB cable with both hands so about 30cm or so of the cable is covered with flesh. Does it change?

Does it change if you touch the microphone body and the computer case at the same time?

You might want to do this at a time when nobody can see you. When I do it, I call in friends -- reinforcements with voltmeters so there's no question I haven't lost my mind.

Koz

gdlk wrote:... i actually can't hear any noise now, but cable is really short. ...
Maybe someone can tell me what could be a noise source.

If the shorter the cable, the less the noise, then that's consistent with the cable picking up EMI radiated from the computer through the air. Maybe try a double-shielded USB cable to block the EMI.

Trebor wrote:

gdlk wrote:... i actually can't hear any noise now, but cable is really short. ...
Maybe someone can tell me what could be a noise source.

If the shorter the cable, the less the noise, then that's consistent with the cable picking up EMI radiated from the computer through the air. Maybe try a double-shielded USB cable to block the EMI.

I've tried to connect mic via isolated usb extender and 15cm usb cord on top of it. I got very close results to 2m cable test. Here you can see frenque analyze: also here pictures of my usb cables i used for tests:
http://imgur.com/a/GLKMr

Also i have same Gigabyte Z77 D3H motherbord as OP here.