Fixing white noise and 60Hz hum when using an iMic and Final Vinyl
I recently bought an iMic in the hopes that I could convert my albums to aiff files w/o having to cart the whole stereo to the basement where the computer is.
Setup
- Software: Final Vinyl v. 1.1.2 (FV15)
- Computer: AGP 400 running Mac OS X 10.3.3
- Turntable: Dual CS 1258
Problem Statement
Here's the problem that I had: when I had the turntable hooked through the iMic and have the 'connected to turntable' choice selected on the equalizer, I got a large amount of white noise. It wasn't the 60Hz ground hum which occurs when the turntable is unconnected, but really was white noise (I figured this out by turning the EQ to 'typical connection' and cranking all the sliders to +20db, and then by cranking the input gain in the main window to +10db).
Fixes
Griffin Technology gave the main part of the solution. Here are their fixit steps (Thanks, Justin):
- Flip the switch towards speaker. This will amplify the signal coming in.
- Go to Applications-->Utilites and run Audio MIDI Setup. Set the
"Properties For:" to iMic USB Audio System and make sure that both input and
output are set to 16bit 44100Hz 2 channels. Most likely it is set to 8bit.
- Run Final Vinyl click EQ and set it to connected to turntable with a 10db
boost.
- Click Preview see if any of that helped the situation.
I didn't have any trouble with the 8 bit setting, and I found that 20db was a better setting than 10db. Still --- everything got much better.
Here are some additional notes about setting up the iMic to get the least amount of noise.
- I found that there was much more ground buzz (60Hz hum in the US) if the iMic was hooked to my USB hub than if it was hooked up to the computer directly. This is probably because of the large number of power cords near the cable from the computer to the USB hub.
- Grounding was important. When I had the turntable grounded to a cheapie non-turntable enabled stereo, there was more ground buzz than when I had the turntable grounded directly to the outlet into which my equipment is plugged.