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Old 3rd November 2006   #2
ulysses
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Joined: Mar 2003
Location: Minneapolis and Wiesbaden
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You have to be realistic about what you can expect from a UPS, especially a consumer product from Compaq. I think it's totally unrealistic to think you'll keep recording a keeper if you have a power outage during a take. Even if you manage to keep all of your gear powered up by the UPS, there's sure to be a noise, or a loss in musician concentration, or something. So forget about salvaging the take in progress. What you don't want to do is lose the last seven takes you have on the computer or whatever. So you need to keep the digital gear powered up - everything that will prevent a crash, let you save your work, and shut down the computer while you wait for the power to come back on. This may include the screen, if you need it to navigate the save/shutdown process. But if it's a CRT, it'll cut into your backup time.
As for expecting a UPS to somehow clean up your power line - think again. First of all, most UPS devices don't do anything at all until the power outage occurs - they pass the mains power straight through from the wall, and in the event of an outage they quickly switch over. There are some "always online" UPS systems out there, but they're less common and more expensive. Secondly, the power put out by a UPS when it is active is usually nothing like the (mostly) clean pure sinewave coming out of the wall - it's a reasonable approximation of a sine wave, just clean enough to keep the switching supplies in your computer devices happy. Those things mostly don't care what the power line looks like. So running your analog gear off of this nasty power is going to be a bad idea. Once again, there are specialized products out there that put out a "true sine wave" mains voltage, but just how "true" it is I can't say. In any case, these are esoteric devices that will cost a whole lot more than your typical compusa UPS that isn't worth putting new batteries into.
To get the refrigerator noise off the studio mains, you can install a line filter at the refrigerator. This is more cost effective than installing them all over the studio. But if any particular gear is still susceptible to fridge noise, then install line filters as necessary in the studio. There's something to be said for running your whole control room off of a single circuit, through a single power conditioner.
If one of your computer monitors is dumping squeally noises into your audio gear, you might try a line filter on the monitor, or plug it into a separate outlet. If that doesn't help, the noise may be airborne as opposed to noise on the power line. Changing the location of the monitor will be your best bet (like take it to the Salvation Army, for example).
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Justin Ulysses Morse
Roll Music Systems
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