DJ TIP #2: How to kill that speaker buzzing

[DJTeaRexx]

i have this problem with my msi laptop its from the charger but my ground loop isolater and shielded gold plate rca cables are doing nothing im still getting bad feed back , only method is to unplug the charger :( but i need to find a fix for it. and a long lead adapter doesnt work either

[MrMac5150]

That noise is the switching transistors on that type of

power adapter, normal for those types of power units..

[silentglaceon]

my HP laptop was buzzing whilst i was watching this vid...he sounded funny > <

and i still dont know how to fix the problem... -.-

[jfslim25]

I used to have an HP laptop and the same happened to me I think because the charger was broken or the spot in the laptop where you connect the charger was broken... anyway, most of the time, this happens with all laptops, when you turn your laptop charger to the same electricity plug as the amplifier! So, to solve this problem just get separated electricity plugs! One for the amplifier and other for the laptop!! ;) hope i was clear (lack of vocabulary lol)

[djsareawesome]

wait why did you use all those adaptors? you didnt need most of those..

[DJCyRo]

@djsareawesome Simple. The Ground loop adapter ends in RCA plugs. On one end of this chain is a laptop with a 3.5mm stereo port. I did this video years ago, so its a bit hard to remember, but I believe the adapter comes in as RCA female, and exits as RCA male. On the other end, I needed to change the female to male, so that I could plug into the mixer's RCA ports (female).

Your setup may be different.

[djsareawesome]

@DJCyRo Right.. but watch what you did, you could have skipped half of those connections dude, its pretty oblivious, where you went RCA male to RCA male, that coulda gone right into the mixer. Not hating but using a lot of adaptors kills the sound quality and is always best to be avoided.

[DJCyRo]

@djsareawesome Sheesh, its been so long, I forgot what I did! LOL. OK, here's how it works. The power comes from the wall, to the laptop. The laptop is sending the signal to the mixer. The cable you saw me pull out of the laptop went directly to the mixer. I was wrong above. The loop adapter goes between that cable and the laptop. It cleans the signal. the loop adapter had RCA male on both ends. If the laptop had RCA outputs, I wouldn't need any adapters.

[DJCyRo]

@djsareawesome But no laptops have RCA out, they all have 3.5mm headphone jacks, unless you have a USB soundcard. So, I needed a series of adapters to change the cable (that goes to the DJ mixer) from 3.5mm to RCA female, then on the other end, change from RCA Male to 3.5mm stereo.

[djsareawesome]

Just btw, lifting the ground on transformer wont shock anyone haha

[soypiasa262]

thanks bro it helped alot hahah

[HunterNoscope]

hey dick face i do have a laptop and is hp, i get a buzzing noise. but i dont know wtf ur talkin about all that amp bullshit and whatnot. go die.

[DJCyRo]

@HunterNoscope I'm always amazed at how people show their intelligence in Youtube comments.

This video is obviously meant for DJ's, but can be applied to audio solutions as well.

[Djadidas1983]

@HunterNoscope I went to school for electronics and have a degree, this guy isnt a DJ lol real Dj's use Turntables and not press stop and play on winamp/windows media player on a Laptop. I use a laptop that does not use a ground on it, and I have no grounding issues.

[sambucafish]

@HunterNoscope The guy is trying to help people. Why all this hate man?

[mickyloughlin]

are you off your nutt .......what a nutter hahaha

[cadnyc]

thanks for the tip

[TheWetFeathers]

Your boring drink some coffee do a line of coke to get your enthusiasm up! Geez

[DJCyRo]

@TheWetFeathers I don't see you posting any videos. Its so easy to critique from behind your keyboard. Get some guts and do some videos yourself..... Then lets see how not boring you are....

[willugoupordown]

Thanks so much for posting this! The radio near me(Richmond, VA) said they no longer sale the isolator, but I found one at Best Buy for $15 it did the job! This is like the greatest invention, haha.

[esnigga]

does the buzzing come out of ur cueing headphones too? please answer this shit is gay!! and i got an external sound card! DJio

[esnigga]

does the buzzing come out of ur cueing headphones too? please answer this shit is gay!!

[Carnije81]

yo dj...i run all my mastering software for my studio off of my macbook pro 15inch...worst buzz ive ever heard but when you hook up the dvi port its unbearable. apparently this is a defect with most macs...does this do this with yours at all

[nonmum]

I had that SAME EXACT sound coming from my Dell Studio laptop. Try this out before you go to Radioshack and buy $20.00 worth of adaptors. UNPLUG the power source to your laptop & connect to your PA. If the sound has gone away, chances are - its a result of a grounding issue. To solve this issue w/o running off of battery, go to any hardware store & buy a ground adaptor. Turns a 3 prong into a 2 prong. It costs about 75 cents. My problem went away.

[DJCyRo]

@nonmum While that may seem to solve your immediate issue, every electrician I have spoken with says that carries a risk of electrical shock.

All I know is, is that I have $1000's worth of gear and don't want to risk shocking the system because I want to save $19.

[MSDJALC]

@DJCyRo Also runs the risk of a fine for removing or not using a ground in a commercial location, we have to be careful with this for shows when we run our foggers and stuff...

[IamDJ556]

dude they make rca to 1/8 cables

[DjKevski]

I have a usb mixer which connects to my laptop by 2 usb leads, I've tested and no hum, but not tested in a club yet. Worried when I get there the hum will come ! Has anyone experienced hum with a usb mixer ???

[zarcnest]

i like staring at ur cat

[waylan3]

radio shack also sells a  1/8 inch plug that has two male rca plugs on it which you can hook up to the other end rca cables coming out of the ground loop eliminator and that will eliminate alot of the chances of that wire you made caming unplugged or developing a short at one of it many plug connections

[fatstuff28]

ive been a dj for 2 years and the only time ive had buzzin through my speakers is when my power supply for my lap top had a bit of a wiring problem, ,just another tip for you whether u listen or you dont but dont have the volume on your lap top on full just knock it down to half!

[waylan3]

dont let your equipment touch each other and solve the problem

[Si1983h]

@waylan3 I know what you are saying but not in this case, the HP laptops inject a load of high frequency interference into your system when running on the psu! it's that bad that I just changed the laptop for a vaio which is faultless

[youngn420]

get a Mac =)

[lochnarus]

With GL isolators all that is happening is that it is basically just EQing out the frequency of the hum, not actually eliminating it.

[pwee11a]

@lochnarus That's not true. GL isolators work by removing the electrical connection between the two devices that are connected together via RCA cables. They have little 1:1 transformers which allow the signal to pass but the noise that is created by one device finding a shortcut to ground through the other is blocked.

[MysticalChicken]

I have a Compaq Armada M700 laptop which I think is made by HP, which often has a buzzing sound coming ONLY out of the right-hand speaker when I listen to music, if I've had the laptop on for a while (it does it whether or not I have headphones in). To put it lightly, it drives me insane. Will the adapter thingy work on my laptop? Or do I have a different problem? It's not the driver, I know that.  Restarting the laptop makes it go away for a while but eventually the buzzing comes back.

[dhoytinaz]

Thanks for this. I actually went and bought a $70 usb sound card, but still had the buzzing. I assume because the sound card was still pulling power from the laptop I watched this video, went and bout the $16 ground loop isolator and it has been nice and peaceful ever since.

[XbenjaminXL3]

my speakers have a buzzy noise and i don have a cell phone what do i do?

[ADIDDY29]

yes this will solve the buzzing but it also turns the stereo ourput from the laptop into a mono output. the way these things work is by collecting all the signal together, then cutting out the high frequencies (the buzzing) then send it all bck out agin but in a mono signal as it has no way of determining left and right

[DJCyRo]

Yea, I originally thought that too.  In fact, when I had this buzzing issue in my car, i used this very same isolator to get rid of the buzz, and it did exactly what you describe.

However, when connected to the mixer from a headphone out on a laptop, I didn't notice any loss in quality of sound. Only a loss in buzzing.

BTW, I no longer DJ from an HP laptop, I use a Macbook, and it doesn't have this issue.

[RPelectribe]

thanks for this - I had the same problem when I moved to active speakers with my laptop and m-audio firewire audiophile soundcard. The noise was terrible when the laptop was on mains power and I was a bit doubtful as to whether anything so simple could be that effective. But it was - instant silence! - available from Maplin in the UK for £12. Thanks you!

[throwbakmoney]

do u have any videos showin how to fix blown speakers i got a compaq laptop and my speakers blew so everything sounds real low and fucked up unless i use headphones and i dont have the money 2 get it fixed if u do let me know i fu dont let me know any ways thanks

[DJCyRo]

I don't have a video on that. To fix a blown speaker in a laptop, you literally have to open it up. As a network technician during the day, I have taken apart many laptops. LOTS OF SCREWS! If you can get some other laptop speakers, maybe from ebay, or maybe even a new laptop shell that matches your model, you might be able to swap out the speakers. Good luck.

[dodger6936]

Creepy how similar your setup, more specifically your rack looks to mine, Check out my vid!

[DJCyRo]

We have the same mixer.

I now have a macbook instead of a HP laptop, and the macbook doesn't have the buzzing issue. I also have a different amp, and have removed the light controller and replaced it with a copilot.

[bigstu911]

what case and stand do u have for ur mixer/laptop

[DJCyRo]

the case is a SKB, 8u, I think. In this video, the case is simply sitting on my speakers.

[gerard7622]

if it was any other appliance like a big metal amp or even a mixing board made of metal, and the transformer is in the inside of the unit, so that the 120 volt ac curent actually goes nto the unit then thats a different story

[gerard7622]

well it could if in the rare case that a short was created between the hot and the metal casing of a unit, but a laptop does not have a metal casing and the 120 volt ac hot leg does not even get through to the laptop, only 12v dc does. speaking from an electrician point of view.

[gerard7622]

well i figured it out. all i have to do is disconect the ground prong on the laptop power cord, either by using an ext cord with the ground broke off, or break it off the laptop cord, or however else you wanna do it, and it totally got rid of it. im an electrician and i know it doesn't realy need that ground ,it converts it into low voltage dc, and the ground doesnt even continue through to the laptop wich is all plastic anyway.

[DJCyRo]

I've read that breaking that ground prong off and "lifting" the ground increases the chances of shock.

[rockbandmidi]

This is the real solution to this problem I figured it out last week... In my case, my stupid yamaha keyboard has no midi port and must be routed USB through the laptop.. the noise follows the USB to the keyboard and then to the amp--laptop not even plugged into the amp.. Noise can also be SEEN in my TV when I plug the lappy in.. Acer figured this shit out and my newest laptop from them, still 3 prong, but NO noise seen or heard. Glad to see an eletricians opinion on it.

[gerard7622]

thing is i get the noise whether its pluged in to a different circuit or not, and even when the mixer is turned off and even when the audio is plugged in to my usb sound card. as lond as the lap top is plugged in it makes that noise, due to all my audio experience im skeptical on if the groung loop iso realy works, but i will buy and try, i feel it realy needs to be resolved through the ac power.

[DJCyRo]

I don't know. All I can say is try it out. You can see and hear in my video how it kills my buzzing problems. 

My only complaint is that the adapter kinda gets in my way sometimes. But that's easily fixed with another cable.

[AustinTyler550]

if you put your laptop on a different circuit as your amp there wont be a ground loop.

[DJCyRo]

I thought that too, and would commonly plug the laptop into another outlet on another outlet, and it would someimes get rid of the buzz.

Also, you don't always have access to a separate circuit.

[AustinTyler550]

yeah but i like to have my amps on a different circuit so i have a 200'extension cord

[djbigron]

Thanks man great video? what kind of speakers are those.

[DJCyRo]

The speakers are PVDJ 112i models. Made by Peavey for DJ's. Only place I have found them is a local shop in Baltimore called Bill's Music Warehouse, but I'm sure you can get them online somewhere. Mine are 12inch speakers. They also come in 15inch and I think there is a matching sub woofer.

[Carloz800]

Nice video man, I use a USB to RCA that my uncle gave me a while ago but this tip is still good 5/5

[RockTheHouse4]

hard drive feedback, it sucks. i get the same thing with my dell backup computer, even with a external sound card

[RockTheHouse4]

i am picking one of these up!

[chrisawaite]

nice tip