I’m hearing a weird “beep” when connecting my guitar to the PC and using effects, I got this problem using ardour as DAW and Guitarix or Neural Amp Modeler (by Mike Oliphant).
The beep doesn’t come regularly, but at random times, it seems like there is some sort of electronic clock signal which “clicks” at certain times…
I recorded the “beep” and uploaded it online, here it is.
Another (very) weird behaviour I noticed when using some effects of Neural Amp Modeler is that it makes a weird humming sound when pressing a key on my keyboard (yes, the one I’m using to write this question), as if the PC keyboard signal interferes with the audio signal (…?)
I’m using:
AVLinux Operative System (kernel: 6.0.0-10.1-liquorix-amd64)
Ardour 7.2.123 as DAW
Guitarix 0.44.1 as effects processor
Neural Amp Modeler (by Mike Oliphant) as effects processor
Jack audio server with QJackCtl user interface (preinstalled in the OS)
M-AUDIO MTrack II Plus at which I connect my instruments
Can anyone help me understand this weird situation? Because I’m totally lost
Are you using a high quality USB cable ? Maybe reroute the cable away from the pc and other electronics as much as possible. Maybe Cell phone interefrence picked up by guitar pickups or cable?
A while ago I noticed something similar when I tried to use the GxBoss DS1 plugin from Guitarix. Once the track is recorded, a beeping sometimes shows up and most of the times it does not. In rare cases the beep even stays permanent and it will go away when bypassing this plugin. So I think it’s a software bug in the plugin and I opened an issue for this (Strange audio artifacts in GxBoss DS1 LV2 plugin in Ardour · Issue #119 · brummer10/guitarix · GitHub).
My workaround so far: just don’t use those particular plugins
When doing vocal recording using a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2, I sometimes see a very narrow peak in the spectrum (LSP Parametric Equalizer) at exactly 20kHz (I’m recording with 48 or 96kHz).
No idea what’s causing this one, I never saw it with the Behringer UPhoria. So most likely a hardware glitch in the audio interface?
My workaround for this one: it’s not audible anyway, but I usually just add a sharp Resonance cut in the LSP Equalizer and turn it down until the peak is gone when looking at the Post-eq spectrum.
In your case: try to play around with a pre-recorded region.
If you play back the same region multiple times and the beep occurs only randomly, it could be just a software bug somewhere.
On the other hand, if the issue is permanent and you also can see it in the spectrum of your region without any plugins involved, then it smells like some hardware or shielding issue, maybe even a wonky power supply from the PC mainboard to the interface.
In this case you could only try other (available) hardware and see if something improves: other PC/laptop, use a different USB port, go through an USB hub, other USB cable (with/without a ferrite bead), other audio interface, other room…
I’m using the cable I found in the package of my audio interface. Actually it seems a USB type B to standard USB cable and is also not so long… So it is hard to do such a test
Thank you for the insight! I maybe could give a try using a live version of AV-Linux in my laptop with the same audio interface connected, see if the issue is still there and share the results
