Korg Forums

Hello everyone,

So recently I bought myself a korg kmx8 mixer, an old crappy mixer which works okay for what im doing and so anyways, I also have an ms20, a troland tr8, a turntable and a regular electronic keyboard which I plug into this mixer. The mixer does produce a bit of noise, but it's really just white noise, which you cant really hear when its all in the mix. However, when I simply *turn on* my electribe, even with its channel totally closed on the mixer, It will produce a buzzing, computer dialup internet, weird sound, which will also change tone when I press the keys on the electribe, any keys that produce light, the "drum" pads, audio in on off, write button, etc.

Thats pretty weird to me, I never realised this before using the headphone out on the mixer,

This sound-signal is so strong, it is heard with the levels being totally closed on the electribe channel on the mixer, and even worse when I turn it on It sound like a full blown bass wave is playing continually.

The electribe is my favorite piece of gear and the master of my music production, can someone help me to figure out whats the problem, seems like maybe the electribe and the mixer have some type of interference or something going.

Anyways, hopefully someone can help me figure out what the problem is so I can continue using my electribe!

Thanks!

Could be bad cables or a ground loop. Is everything plugged into the same power strip? Try different cables. Make sure it's not speaker cable, which is un shielded. Maybe try different mixer input too.

Can you explain qhat a ground loop is, Im not very knoeledgeable in this area, same thing for the "un shielded" speaker cable. As for the different mixer inout, its the same thing across every input when I turn on my electribe.

Thanks for your response the sigma!

A ground loop can occur when you have things plugged into different outlets on the wall, as the ground can be taking two different paths causing a potential difference which causes a current to flow through the grounds and audio shields.

As for unshielded cables, a speaker cable can have the same 1/4" connector on it as a shielded instrument cable. A speaker cable is basically the same as a lamp cord, just two pieces of copper. An instrument cable has a copper conductor in the center, and a shield which is the second conductor but it is wrapped around the first, with insulation between of course. This keeps interference out of the signal.

I have seen people use speaker cable to hookup keyboards and they got interference. I'm not saying this is the case for you, but it's something to check.

You could also try to put your headphones into the L/R jacks and see if the noise is still there without any other cables hooked up. You will only hear sound in one ear, and it will usually be pretty quiet compared to the actual headphone out, but if you hear the noise still you know it is coming from the electribe and it will need repair. If you don't hear it, then it is something in your interconnecting setup.

Hope that helps....