Remote Recording Rig Noise

[soundtrack2life]

I have a mobile rig that I put together to record at my brother-in-laws garage. I originally set it up in my basement and everything worked awesome. I then brought it over to his house and I would get intermittent pops & cracks. Well I built the computer based on a P-3 750 MHz computer with SAW Studio Lite & 2 Behringer ADA8000's. For and old computer use just for tracking (mixing to be done elsewhere) the thing bearly breaks a sweat!! Anyway I thought it was first a word clock problem. I purchased a used Lucid Genx -6. No improvement. I started playing with the soundcard driver & buffers. No improvement. After going round and round for 3 Sundays in a row I broke the system down and brought it home. I ran a series of test recordings tonight and all the problems are gone!. I am starting to suspect there is something going on with the electric line. It has been hot here in NJ and his central air has been running in the house. Maybe the compressor is throwing a pop down the line. Also we have a strong feeling his garage maybe sharing a circut with something else in his house. Tommorrow he is going to kill the breaker the garage is on and see if he notices anything else goes out. Well if this is the case in lieu of adding a larger panel and or putting the garage on a seperate breaker are there anything cost effective electrical filters or remedies to this issue. I am about 98% sure it is in the electrical line because of the process of elimination. I am sure someone else has run into these type issues when doing remote recording . . .help. TIA
Joe

[jabney]

hi soundtrack2life,

"It has been hot here in NJ"

You sir, are correct. I keep thinking I'm in Houston, it's been so humid in NJ this summer. Guess the rest of the U.S. is sweltering too. Maybe there is something to global warming.

As for your analysis, it seems to me you have followed all the logical steps, and have done a pretty thorough job of troubleshooting. One thing you may want to do is try recording very late at night - 2;00 AM or so - when the voltage should be higher. Have you done a voltage check in the garage? Are you using a UPS?

best,

John

[soundtrack2life]

John, That was my plan to get back over there with a volt meter to see what the voltage is. Second when the heat & humidity drop and I bring the rig back we will kill the AC in the house for and hour and see if that does it. I was kind of hoping someone knew of a "magic box" make & model # on the cheap that could solve the issue.
Thanks again,
Joe

[Remoteness]

A true sine wave online UPS is key but, it sounds like you also need an isolation transformer for your AC power...

Your recording rig must be physically separated from any A/C or refrigerator compressor kicking in and such.

Also consider running a new AC power feed for the garage recording rig.
The run should be separated from the house electric circuits -- it will help prevent anyone from switching off your setup during that perfect take.

Keep things simple and write “recording rig” or something to that effect on the circuit breakers or new power distro.