noise from incandescent lights

[tmcconnell]

My r84 gets quite a bit quieter when I turn out the track lights (halogen bulbs) that are my main lighting. Is there a way to fix this? This is after I apply all the other countermeasures to noise in that mic - for examle, I use monster cables with it, and Great River pres, and filtered power to the main racks and tilt the mic to a position where its hum is minimal. Its acceptable when the signal source is loud - like a violin at 3 feet - but still, it bothers me. What options do I have? Should I filter or balance the power on the lighting circuit? Its not 60 cycle (might be a harmonic thereof) ... more like a buzz. Ideas??? Is it the halogen bulbs? The track itself, or the power itself being distributed - flowing - through the track? No dimmer, btw.

[Rick Sutton]

Pretty simple to run a test on this.
Turn out the lights and see what happens.

My guess is the halogens are the culprit.

If the noise goes away dump the halogens and use lamps with regular bulbs and do the test again.

[u b k]

halogen lights run on a transformer, usually cheaply made chinese boxes of pain... and therein lies your problem.

are the lights and the gear on the same circuit? if so, change that.


gregoire
del
ubk

[drBill]

Like UBIK said, get them on a seperate circuit as far away from your audio AC as you can.

[tmcconnell]

I guess those little white boxes from which the track lights protrude are indeed transformers. F**K! I''m sure you are right about that. I guess I'll just use "mood lighting" (ie not the track lights) when using the ribbon mics.
(2 minutes later)
I just confirmed it using a teeny guitar amp and a single coil pickup as my emi sensor. I'm going to have to find some other kind of light that fits that track format or bag the system altogether. When the pickup gets close to the transformer the buzz goes loud. Thanks!! ted.

[stevep]

Originally Posted by u b i k

halogen lights run on a transformer, usually cheaply made chinese boxes of pain... and therein lies your problem.

are the lights and the gear on the same circuit? if so, change that.


gregoire
del
ubk

Yes

[stevep]

Originally Posted by tmcconnell

I guess those little white boxes from which the track lights protrude are indeed transformers. F**K! I''m sure you are right about that. I guess I'll just use "mood lighting" (ie not the track lights) when using the ribbon mics.
(2 minutes later)
I just confirmed it using a teeny guitar amp and a single coil pickup as my emi sensor. I'm going to have to find some other kind of light that fits that track format or bag the system altogether. When the pickup gets close to the transformer the buzz goes loud. Thanks!! ted.

I think you could keep the tracks and just replace the cans with P30s or larger.

If you have a dimmer in the circuit that can cause some buzz but there are variable transformers that will work as a dimmer with no buzz. not cheep but thats the way to go. (you may still have to chuck the low volt cans)

You can keep them and use them in another room though

I have a mix of low voltage and regular lights in both control room and the live room , and only have a buzz when i use tube Mic's or some guitar set ups


I fixed those problems without having to swap out any lights

Every room is diffrent...........

Star grounding can help many ground loops and buzz problems,

but that is another topic.





steve