USB noise and isolation

rjmmusic

rjmmusic

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Staff member
Connecting a PBC to a computer and a guitar rig at the same time can definitely cause a ground loop. I set up our pedalboard here with a long 30ft / 10m USB cable to a computer and it was massively noisy. I bought one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F4SCCR2

Works great, and dramatically reduces noise. Definitely a good thing to have if you're keeping your PBC connected via USB at all times.
 
I looked at it and saw this in the description..
  • DOES NOT WORK WITH DEVICES REQUIRING MORE THAN 200mA! Power hungry audio devices with phantom power mic inputs will not work.o_O
 
rjmmusic said:
Connecting a PBC to a computer and a guitar rig at the same time can definitely cause a ground loop. I set up our pedalboard here with a long 30ft / 10m USB cable to a computer and it was massively noisy. I bought one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F4SCCR2

Works great, and dramatically reduces noise. Definitely a good thing to have if you're keeping your PBC connected via USB at all times.
Click to expand...

Just noticed this is in the PBC forum and you actually state PBC (The comment about the GT threw me off), sooo, never mind.


Would this work or is it necessary with the PBC-10? I always keep connected to Mac during performance for MIDI control of MainStage software. I do get noise when connected to the computer but haven't yet isolated the source.

Cheers!
 
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If disconnecting the USB cable gets rid of the noise, then the isolator should help.
 
Is there a specific isolator that you would recommend or a particular spec that I should look out for? The one linked to in this thread isn't available though amazon at the moment.
 
Matthew.clements said:
Is there a specific isolator that you would recommend or a particular spec that I should look out for? The one linked to in this thread isn't available though amazon at the moment.
Click to expand...
That's the only one I've ever used. There isn't anything special or unusual about the PBC USB ports, so any isolator should work, assuming they work as advertised. The PBC uses "full speed" USB 1.1 which by today's standards is quite slow, but way, way faster than MIDI. It seems like most isolators are for USB 2.0, which is backward compatible with the PBC's USB 1.1.
 
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