Hello all. Have an odd problem with Ardour 3.x series. If I start a new project and add empty tracks, each track I add creates a hissing noise which increases in volume as tracks are added. Ardour 2.x and Mixbus are stone quiet no matter how many tracks I add. 16 tracks in A3, loud annoying hissing. 32 tracks in A2 and Mixbus, silence. Any thoughts ?
John in Kansas City
no, nothing connected and no content in the tracks yet. Literally new empty tracks. Doesn’t matter if it’s in 48000 or 44100 hz. No input devices connected at all.
I sometimes get a hiss if I have no mics plugged in. When not in play mode, Ardour is monitoring its inputs. On my system that’s 8 channels of M-Audio Delta 1010 connected to 8 channels of mic preamp. If the gains are turned up and no mic is plugged in the noise level is quite high. The noise level is much lower when a mic is connected; that’s a function of how mic preamps are designed for lowest noise with a typical mic connected.
As soon as you put Ardour into “play” the noise vanishes as you are now monitoring your (nonexistent) mix.
Hi,
I’ve noticed this issue too, in my case I only seem to get it when using the onboard sound chip on my laptop, using my USB Audio device it doesn’t happen. While it is mildly annoying it seems to only occur on the monitoring side of things and not actually affect the exported audio.
Ok, cool. Thanks for the help everybody. 
I encountered this with a single midi track, not being played. I posted about it a couple days ago. once it started playing, the noise level disappeared.