Argh! Turned on the system the other day and there was a phased hum/tone thing going on in the background of my recordings. Nothing had changed (well, maybe the weather), but suddenly my output was unacceptable.

I was able to clean up the background noise well enough for auditions (and it didn’t affect my ISDN sessions), but luckily, I didn’t have any paying work that couldn’t be delayed until a fix was found.

Was it the Mackie? Was it the cable to the computer? Was it the mic cable? One thing at a time – one precious minute after minute – I eliminated and pondered. Finally, I packed up the Mackie and the cable to the computer and trundled them down to San Diego Professional Sound and Music.

Turns out the 2nd channel on the Mackie is kaput – or at least has a permanent hum. He cleaned all the inputs and outputs – basically every connection on the unit – and we didn’t hear any problems with the other 3 channels (one of which is for the phone patch).

Back in the studio – cables back in place – and voila! No hum. Thank you Shane.