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Having a couple issues with my sound. This issue has happened to me twice since I have had my set up. Last night my system was jamming and all at one even though I was light miles away from my mixer and speakers the volume (not the mic volume) did a sonic blast and doubled the volume. I was holding a 3 month old kitten at the time and I found out it had claws. I about jumped out of my skin. The level meter went from 3 bars of green to max yellow and I had to turn the channel fader for the sound input down to almost nothing and keep my mic fader at 0. This is the 2nd time this has happened. I am using the Behringer UCA202 interface. The meter stayed high even with the channel fader all the way down as long as I had music coming in. I switched to my internal sound card via the 1/8 to dual 1/4 jack and was able to put the channel fader back to normal but now I have a persistent humming sound.

The Behringer was hooked to the mixer via dual plugs, gray plugged into L output and Orange plugged into R output. Then the 1/4 duals plugged into my L and R 9/10 channel (stereo). What am I doing wrong?

Gee, no one has any ideas?

Ripman,,,

I use that same piece of equipment on my computer, never once have had an issue with it. Works perfect all the time. Before I bought it, I used the internal sound card and the headphone jack to the RF modulator. Got the same "humm" you are talking about, that's why I bought the UCA202. I am sorry I don't have a solution to your problem, but it sounds like its a computer issue to me, maybe i'm wrong. Good luck!

Scott

Hopefully it's a case of having speakers plugged into one outlet and everything else in another. At least that's what I've been told to try to get away from.

I may have solved the sonic blast issue. I now have everything coming from the same outlet via surge protectors but the buzzing/hum will not go away. Even through the UCA202 it is very loud and very annoying. I give up.

Having everything on one outlet isn't going to solve anything. Often times it's not feasable to have a powered speaker on the same outlets as the rest of the stuff.

The humm is basically a ground loop somewhere in the system. To check if that's the case - go to Rat Shack & get one of those 3 prong to 2 prong adapter - DO NOT use this for regular use, but to test it's cheap. If your hum goes away, then go get a real ground loop isolator.
As far as why your sound suddenly surges, i'm going to wager a guess it's bad cord(s) somewhere & every once in a while gets enough juice to push the full current - i've had this happen with bad speaker cords in the past.

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What was the cause of the sonic blast issue?

As someone mentioned before about a ground loop causing the hum. If you have everything plugged into adjacent outlets and something plugged in across the room it may cause it. The grounds are not usually at the same potential so it induces a 60/120Hz hum in the audio. The ac main phases from the outlet may also be different too.

Usually an isolation transformer is recommended but it has to be rated for the power of everything plugged into it. The ground connection on the output side of these transformers are usually floating. There is also the cheap but not always safe way of using a cheater plug which is usually used on the computer if it powered by ac.

I will admit, I don't have high quality speaker chords. I did find one thing out, the hum is directly related to the laptop. Once I found that out, I unplugged it and went to battery power and the hum went away.

Then it's definitely a ground loop on the computer AC.
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/HumX/ will get rid of it safely.

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You recommend this over the cheaper one at radio shack Lonman?

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index ... Id=2062214

There is still a quiet hum, I think that is between the speakers and the mixer, not nearly as noticable unless the volume is up and no music is playing.

So the sonic boom I talked about, keep in mind after it happens, I have to keep the channel fader for the laptop down almost to nothing. If I shut everything down and then power back up, then the fader is more in line with the mic channel fader. Still think this is from the cheap speaker cable?

Also does anyone use more than one ground loop eliminator or isolator?

I do, yes. But try the cheaper one first, it may work for you.

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well now if it works better, I'd rather spend the extra money up front. Where do you recommend getting quality mic/speaker cords at?

Is it normal to have a little hiss when the volume is loud and no music is playing?

I understand that you use power speaker; and if so why do you think you need speaker cable?

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I can neither confirm nor deny ever having or knowing anything about nothing.... mrscott

Has to be connected to the mixer.

I guess I should have said microphone cable. Anyway, is monster the way to go?

I'm thinking about getting the Monster Cable P500M30 X 2 for $79 (30 feet) and a Ebtech Hum X Voltage Hum Filter. They selll the ebtech for $55 at amazon and most sites wants $79 for 20' so it appears to be a good deal. I feel like a learned a little bit about hum and ground loop today. I did some research on line as well.

LIke I said try the Rat Shack first you can always return it if it doesn't work.

As far as cable, Moster cable is nice, but not going to make THAT big of a difference. Just get cords with a lifetime warranty. If you can get them from your local Guitar Center - if there is one around. I haven't paid for a mic cord in nearly 10 years.

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might want to do some research on monster cables,they are way overpriced and make no difference.Lot of information out there about how these guys market this stuff to us.
here is one link,they also offer better priced alternatives.
http://www.futuremusic.com/news/august2007/audio_video_cable_pricing.html