High-pitched noise from my R3 when I have USB plugged in

Discussion relating to the Korg RADIAS, RADIAS-R and the R3

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uranutan
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Aug 18, 2009 8:07 pm

High-pitched noise from my R3 when I have USB plugged in

Post by uranutan »

Whenever I use the R3's USB port to connect it to my laptop, I get a fluctuating, high-pitched electronic noise through my speaker. The doesn't even stop when I turn off the keyboard. Is there a way to fix this without buying anything expensive or will I have to resort to normal MIDI for recording?
xmlguy
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Joined: Mon Nov 26, 2007 1:55 pm

Post by xmlguy »

Whatever you hear on your speaker, it won't affect whatever midi that you're recording from the R3. Midi is not audio, so it isn't affected by any fluctuating, high-pitched electronic noise generated by your computer's bad internal audio card. It the noise bothers you, you can turn down, turn off, or unplug the speaker or internal audio card, but this will have no impact on the perfectly recorded midi that your sequencer will do when you hit the keys of the R3. It will also have no impact on the sound produced by the R3, because none of the R3 sound is sent to the computer using USB.

Now if you want to record the sounds that the R3 produces, then your bad computer audio card very well could add the same noise you hear to the audio recording, but it may record just fine if the noise is only in the speaker output of the audio card, so that you'll only hear the noise when you listen on your computer, not if you playback the recording on another computer or use a different audio output device on yours.

If you use regular midi cables instead of the USB cable, it will have no effect on the midi recording or playback of the R3. It could effect the noise you hear on the computer, if the audio card problem is more sensitive to the R3 USB connection than some other USB device.
uranutan
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Aug 18, 2009 8:07 pm

Post by uranutan »

The sound is actually not coming from my computer speakers- I have the output connected to my guitar amplifier. I'm planning on using an audio interface to record the sound however, while sending MIDI to the R3 from a software sequencer via USB.
xmlguy
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Joined: Mon Nov 26, 2007 1:55 pm

Post by xmlguy »

There are several problems with using a guitar amp to listen to the R3. A guitar amp is for guitars, it sucks for synths. Guitar amps often get noisy when hooked up to computers in any way, because guitar amps are designed for guitars, and a computer isn't a guitar either. The amp is expecting an clean signal that looks like guitar pickup on the other side of the cable hooked up to its high gain inputs. Computers have switching power supplies that are hooked up to AC that often transmit electrical noise to high-gain amps.

So you're going to need to change something to get rid of the noise. The R3 hooked only to the amp will probably solve that problem, but it isn't going to make the amp sound good for keyboard sounds. So I suggest you buy speakers like the Logitech Z-2300, which cranks for keyboards, is relatively inexpensive, and is designed to work with computers too.
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