**Dealing with Audio Artifacts: A Guide to Power Conditioning and Ground Loop Isolators**

When it comes to creating high-quality audio, even the smallest imperfections can make a big difference. One common issue that can affect the sound of your music is static hiss, hum, or interference from power conditioning and ground loops. In this article, we'll explore some solutions for dealing with these issues, including power conditioners and ground loop isolators.

**Power Conditioners: A Essential Tool for Clean Power**

A good power conditioner can make all the difference in ensuring that your equipment receives clean power. I currently use a Furman M8X, which has been a reliable workhorse for my studio setup. However, there are many other options available on the market, ranging from simple power strips to advanced conditioners with multiple outlets and features like surge protection and noise filtering. If you can't get a full-power conditioner or need more specific control over your equipment's power supply, there are also outlet-based power conditioners that can be plugged into individual outlets.

For example, I recently purchased an EB Tech Hum X unit, which is specifically designed to clean up ground loops and hum from audio signals. These units are typically used with three-prong power cords and can help remove static and interference from equipment like compressors, mixers, and preamps. In my case, I needed a specific outlet-based solution for one of my equipment that required a different type of power connection.

**Ground Loop Isolators: A Solution for 3.5mm Audio Connections**

Another common issue with 3.5mm audio connections is ground loops, which can cause static hiss and interference between devices. This can happen when you connect multiple PCs or recording devices together using 3.5mm cables. To solve this problem, I recommend using a ground loop isolator, such as the ones from EB Tech.

These units work by creating a separate ground loop for each device, which eliminates the need for a shared ground reference between them. This can help remove static and interference from audio signals and ensure that they sound clear and clean. One directional ground loop isolators are available, with male and female connectors on opposite ends, so make sure to get the right ones for your specific setup.

**Using Ground Loop Isolators in Your Studio Setup**

I've found that using a ground loop isolator can make a huge difference in the sound quality of my studio equipment. I've plugged one of these units into each of my individual components, including the compressor, mixer board, EQ, and preamp. By doing so, I've been able to reduce static hiss and interference from power conditioning and ground loops.

One of the benefits of using a ground loop isolator is that it allows you to create a clean and isolated power supply for each device. This can help prevent hum and interference from one piece of equipment affecting another. Additionally, these units are relatively affordable, with prices ranging from $8 to $9 per unit, depending on the brand and quality.

**Conclusion**

Dealing with audio artifacts like static hiss, hum, and interference can be a challenge in any home studio setup. By using power conditioners and ground loop isolators, you can help ensure that your equipment receives clean power and reduces noise and interference from these issues. Whether you're looking to upgrade your existing power conditioner or add some specific solutions for 3.5mm audio connections, there are many options available on the market.

**Sponsored by EB Tech**

I want to extend a huge thank you to our recent Patreon subscribers without whom this video would not have been possible. Your support means the world to me and allows me to continue creating high-quality content for your entertainment. If you're interested in learning more about these topics or supporting my work, be sure to visit patreon.com/slashevilsbox.

**Additional Resources**

For those who want to learn more about power conditioners and ground loop isolators, I recommend checking out some of the resources listed below:

* EB Tech's website: A great resource for learning about their products and troubleshooting common issues.

* Mtech's website: Another reputable brand offering a range of power conditioning solutions.

* YouTube tutorials: There are many excellent videos on YouTube that cover topics like power conditioning, ground loops, and audio setup.

By investing in a good power conditioner or ground loop isolator, you can take your home studio to the next level and ensure that your music sounds its best.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enif you've had any interest in setting up audio hardware and audio processing rack like I made and made a video about connecting multiple pcs into a mixer in general or just trying to run a bunch of devices across each other you may have run into some issues with static hissing or electrical hum thankfully there's a few ways you can avoid that or at least remove it from your signal and I'm hopefully going to show you my top recommended ways to clean up your audio in hard audio hardware situations as quickly as possible this video will involve three products and then one just conceptual in practice means of avoiding the audio first and foremost let's start with the practical idea and that is your audio hardware be it a mixer board a recorder or a full rack of a compressor EQ and mixer like I have needs to be isolated from the outlet or at least at the very least the power strip that computers and lights are plugged into this is the most common problem is that ground loop hiss and Hum ends up getting caused when you have your audio Hardware plugged into the same power connection as your computers or whites now the super-serious recommendation of course is to completely isolate that Hardware on a completely separate circuit from your other electronics however in a home setup that's pretty much impossible but what you can do is either for certain like I said make sure it's on a different power strip than your other hardware or make sure it's from a different outlet itself what I have done is most of my computer hardware and lights are plugged into one outlets on one side of the room so I've ran a long extension cord from a power outlet on the other side of the room wrapped it around the wall to my audio rack so that's all separate like there's still a printer and a light plugged in over there but it's still on a separate power strip and it generally isn't as heavy and as interfering as my main computer setup another way you can help with this is the first product I'm gonna recommend here which is a power conditioner now mine is specifically a rack mounted unit it is 1u tall to go in my audio rack setup that's generally where they're used but it's basically like a power strip but designed to create a more isolated and conditioned circuit for audio hardware to keep the interference and the static in the hum and the hiss from getting into the audio it provides much more consistent and clean power to devices to prevent some of those common audio artifacts basically mine is an old Furman m 8x squared or something or another but there's plenty of options out there available and they're all pretty good if you can't get one of those power conditioners or if for whatever reason like in my case it doesn't quite do the full job that you need you can pick up something a specific outlet based power conditioner as well now EB tech or AB Tech did agree to sponsor me for a couple of these units as they are quite expensive and I will open this one up here but their hum X units I bought one and then they sent me out three more and then I bought this one as well because I needed one more extra one these are ground loop Isolators and ground loop conditioners provided for specific outlets and they only work with three pole or three prong power cords so an issue I ran into was that my compressor it has its own transformer and is only two prong one of these isn't gonna work with it but anything with a three prong connection it will condition the ground signal and condition the power to help remove a lot of that static audio so I've put one of these on my PC's power plug which is plugged into my Big Ups battery backup and then I've plugged it into all of my individual components the mixer board the compressor or not the compressor I just had to come do the compressor the mixer board the EQ the what else I got over here the preamp that's what I was missing and like is that my computer and all of those are connected and it stays pretty much ground free thanks to these I just picked up a new compressor I'm never so I grabbed another one of these hum X's but red light lights up to indicate the power is coming through plug it in plug the outlet into here you may need some one of those little one foot power extension cables because these are big transformer blocks that will take up pliss base on a power conditioner power strip or outlet but they have worked fantastic for me and I'm super thankful to mtech for reaching out and sponsoring these vid this video I don't think my power conditioner is doing a good enough job for me so that's why I need these and so essentially my power conditioner is just just acting as a power strip however in many situations the power conditioner may be good and now AB Tech also has a few other devices that you can hook up to specifically clean the audio out of the audio signal itself via 1/4 inch connectors or if you're using 3.5 millimeter connectors connections while that was weird there's something else you can use as well so first and foremost is a product that I have recommended since like 2012 or 2013 as soon as I found out about it it's called a ground loop isolator and it looks a little something like this now if you've had 3.5 millimeter audio connections via from your computer's audio out jack a console headphone jack a monitor headphone jack line in any of the 3.5 millimeter audio connections running them between multiple pcs can end up giving you or even from a monitor to like a recording device or a console headphone out to a recording device can give you quite a bit of static or electrical hum or some hiss this does a pretty good job of removing that audio you basically put it between two 3.5 milimeter sources and it it's a loop stick it's an isolator it gets rid of the ground a loop that's happening between the devices and cleans up the audio quite a bit now they are one directional they are specifically one direction so it's male and female on the other end and so they come both ways and so you may need to make sure you get the right ones for your specific setup and if you need a ton of them it can get a little expensive they're like 8 or 9 bucks a pop but they're well worth it for any sort of mixer setup they do a fantastic job of cleaning up audio so this has been a few recommended ways to clean out static hiss come and artifacting an interference from your audio hardware if you're experiencing issues like that in your home studio set up again sponsored by EB Tech thank you so much if you enjoyed the video smash the like button if you have any questions about this kind of thing let me in let me know in the comment section down below it's a kind of complicated topic to talk about smash like go and if you enjoyed don't forget to subscribe for more awesome tech videos and I will catch you in the next one I also want to take a moment to give a huge thanks and shout out to our recent patreon subscribers without you guys these videos would not be possible and I thoroughly appreciate your help visit patreon.com slash evils box to learn moreif you've had any interest in setting up audio hardware and audio processing rack like I made and made a video about connecting multiple pcs into a mixer in general or just trying to run a bunch of devices across each other you may have run into some issues with static hissing or electrical hum thankfully there's a few ways you can avoid that or at least remove it from your signal and I'm hopefully going to show you my top recommended ways to clean up your audio in hard audio hardware situations as quickly as possible this video will involve three products and then one just conceptual in practice means of avoiding the audio first and foremost let's start with the practical idea and that is your audio hardware be it a mixer board a recorder or a full rack of a compressor EQ and mixer like I have needs to be isolated from the outlet or at least at the very least the power strip that computers and lights are plugged into this is the most common problem is that ground loop hiss and Hum ends up getting caused when you have your audio Hardware plugged into the same power connection as your computers or whites now the super-serious recommendation of course is to completely isolate that Hardware on a completely separate circuit from your other electronics however in a home setup that's pretty much impossible but what you can do is either for certain like I said make sure it's on a different power strip than your other hardware or make sure it's from a different outlet itself what I have done is most of my computer hardware and lights are plugged into one outlets on one side of the room so I've ran a long extension cord from a power outlet on the other side of the room wrapped it around the wall to my audio rack so that's all separate like there's still a printer and a light plugged in over there but it's still on a separate power strip and it generally isn't as heavy and as interfering as my main computer setup another way you can help with this is the first product I'm gonna recommend here which is a power conditioner now mine is specifically a rack mounted unit it is 1u tall to go in my audio rack setup that's generally where they're used but it's basically like a power strip but designed to create a more isolated and conditioned circuit for audio hardware to keep the interference and the static in the hum and the hiss from getting into the audio it provides much more consistent and clean power to devices to prevent some of those common audio artifacts basically mine is an old Furman m 8x squared or something or another but there's plenty of options out there available and they're all pretty good if you can't get one of those power conditioners or if for whatever reason like in my case it doesn't quite do the full job that you need you can pick up something a specific outlet based power conditioner as well now EB tech or AB Tech did agree to sponsor me for a couple of these units as they are quite expensive and I will open this one up here but their hum X units I bought one and then they sent me out three more and then I bought this one as well because I needed one more extra one these are ground loop Isolators and ground loop conditioners provided for specific outlets and they only work with three pole or three prong power cords so an issue I ran into was that my compressor it has its own transformer and is only two prong one of these isn't gonna work with it but anything with a three prong connection it will condition the ground signal and condition the power to help remove a lot of that static audio so I've put one of these on my PC's power plug which is plugged into my Big Ups battery backup and then I've plugged it into all of my individual components the mixer board the compressor or not the compressor I just had to come do the compressor the mixer board the EQ the what else I got over here the preamp that's what I was missing and like is that my computer and all of those are connected and it stays pretty much ground free thanks to these I just picked up a new compressor I'm never so I grabbed another one of these hum X's but red light lights up to indicate the power is coming through plug it in plug the outlet into here you may need some one of those little one foot power extension cables because these are big transformer blocks that will take up pliss base on a power conditioner power strip or outlet but they have worked fantastic for me and I'm super thankful to mtech for reaching out and sponsoring these vid this video I don't think my power conditioner is doing a good enough job for me so that's why I need these and so essentially my power conditioner is just just acting as a power strip however in many situations the power conditioner may be good and now AB Tech also has a few other devices that you can hook up to specifically clean the audio out of the audio signal itself via 1/4 inch connectors or if you're using 3.5 millimeter connectors connections while that was weird there's something else you can use as well so first and foremost is a product that I have recommended since like 2012 or 2013 as soon as I found out about it it's called a ground loop isolator and it looks a little something like this now if you've had 3.5 millimeter audio connections via from your computer's audio out jack a console headphone jack a monitor headphone jack line in any of the 3.5 millimeter audio connections running them between multiple pcs can end up giving you or even from a monitor to like a recording device or a console headphone out to a recording device can give you quite a bit of static or electrical hum or some hiss this does a pretty good job of removing that audio you basically put it between two 3.5 milimeter sources and it it's a loop stick it's an isolator it gets rid of the ground a loop that's happening between the devices and cleans up the audio quite a bit now they are one directional they are specifically one direction so it's male and female on the other end and so they come both ways and so you may need to make sure you get the right ones for your specific setup and if you need a ton of them it can get a little expensive they're like 8 or 9 bucks a pop but they're well worth it for any sort of mixer setup they do a fantastic job of cleaning up audio so this has been a few recommended ways to clean out static hiss come and artifacting an interference from your audio hardware if you're experiencing issues like that in your home studio set up again sponsored by EB Tech thank you so much if you enjoyed the video smash the like button if you have any questions about this kind of thing let me in let me know in the comment section down below it's a kind of complicated topic to talk about smash like go and if you enjoyed don't forget to subscribe for more awesome tech videos and I will catch you in the next one I also want to take a moment to give a huge thanks and shout out to our recent patreon subscribers without you guys these videos would not be possible and I thoroughly appreciate your help visit patreon.com slash evils box to learn more\n"