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Post subject: Fender Passport 150 Recording Line Noise
Posted: Sun Jan 27, 2013 10:04 pm
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Hobbyist
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Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2012 6:22 pm
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Hey all,

This issue may not be related to the Passport but I'm posting to see if anyone can help me out.

I've been hooking up my Passport 150 to my computer using a direct stereo line, connecting the STEREO out (bottom left of Passport) to my Line In on my computer to record my electronic piano.

It's been working fine except that recently, it's been recording a lot of line static noise, kind of like a deep rumbling. It's not overbearingly loud, but it is definitely audible at normal volumes. Now, I've never recorded this static noise before with my Passport; silence came out as silence. Also, the speakers that came with the Passport do NOT pick up this static at all. Cranking it up to max volume does not produce the static.

I thought that it might be the connecting line itself, so I ran some tests.

1) I connected computer to my phone and played a song from it. Recorded fine. During silence, no static.

2) I connected computer to Passport, with Passport turned off. There was some static, but lower than when it's on.

3) I connected computer to Passport, with Passport on, but with all the inputs off. The same, loud version of the static came out.

I got my Passport within the last year, and I haven't really used it all that much. Also, I got these results after maybe 10 minutes of usage, so I don't think I'm overheating it.

Any thoughts?


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Post subject: Re: Fender Passport 150 Recording Line Noise
Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2013 9:06 am
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Aspiring Musician
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Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2011 7:24 am
Posts: 434
The most common source of problems here is that there are a lot of places to set the volume here. Likely, your keyboard has a volume control. The channel you plug the keyboard into on the Passport has a volume control. There's also a Master Volume control on the Passport. The computer itself also has a volume control on the input channel you are recording (usually controlled by whatever app you are using to do the recording).

You get noise like this when one of these links is cranked too low and another one is cranked too high to compensate for it. You only hear one volume, after all.

So, go back and set EVERYTHING at 50% volume. Nothing tends to be noisy at 50%. You get noise, especially with inexpensive components when they get cranked to 80% or more, or 20% or less.

So, once everything is at 50%, if the volume is too high or too low at the recording end, adjust all of the volume settings some toward correcting the problem, instead of letting one link take all the work of adjusting the volume.

If you do this, and you still have a noise problem, then consider buying better cables. You might have room noise (fluorescent lights, power bricks with transformers in them, or anything else that broadcasts 60 cycle hum from your AC power to your house), and a cheap cable can act like an antenna and pick up that hum.

I spent over $30 on a one meter patch cable (1/8"TRS to 1/8"TRS) to connect my two Passport Pro amps. That cable doesn't pick up any hum. Cables by Monster are less expensive than that, and they don't pick up hum. A $5 cable from Radio Shack or Electronics-R-Us might pick up hum.


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Post subject: Re: Fender Passport 150 Recording Line Noise
Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2013 10:38 am
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Aspiring Musician
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Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2011 7:24 am
Posts: 434
Ahh. And don't forget the "Stereo Out" volume. That should be among those you'd start out at 50%.


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