buzzing sound when recording keyboard

[munalisa]

Hi!
I am recording my electrical keyboard with a Notepad 8-FX. Every time I record, there is this annoying buzz or electrical hum right when i hit the next chord .The buzzing sound is not constant as when i play really quietly you can't really hear it unless i turn the volume to the max. It just kind of accompanies every chord as it really only happens right when i hit a key or multiple.
So far i have tried switching up the chords (in case one of them was somehow broken), messing with every volume setting on my mixer and disconnecting every other microphone and earphones and so on from my mixer.
Oh also, i am not recording with a microphone, the piano is directly connected to the mixer.
I would really appreciate any kind of help as this problem really lowers the quality of my music.
xx

[David Glover]

Hi,
We probably need a few more clues to help you figure this one out.
Can you tell us what keyboard you are recording?
Do you get this buzzing when it isn't plugged into the mixer (and listening on headphones or speakers)?
Any other information would be helpful.
Cheers,
David

[ef37a]

Make and model of keyboard please (won't help me but might the 'synth'perts' here)

It would seem the hum is only present when a key is held? That happens I guess because there is a 'gate' that mutes the output with all keys up. That could be a fault in the keyboard such as a failing regulator or filter capacitor or, you might have arranged yourself some form of weird hum, aka ground, aka earth, loop.

Please give a FULL breakdown of all the equipment in the chain including any monitoring systems. Does the kbd have a headphone output? If so, do you get the hum there with JUST the keys powered and connected?

Dave.

[Hugh Robjohns]

If the hum sound only happens each time you play a new note or chord, it's probably an inherent element of the reproduced sound from the instrument itself. A grounding or ground-loop problem would usually produce a continuous hum.

But the problem might possibly be improved by changing the gain structure of the keyboard and the mixer... I'm thinking that this might be a problem with transient overloads, and the hum or buzz you're describing might actually be overload distortion. What sort of levels are you seeing on the mixer's meters?

It would help enormously to know what the keyboard is, and whether you are applying any effects in the mixer.

[David Glover]

Hi all,

Difficult to get anywhere when our OP isn't giving us any more information.
I had two possibilities in mind:

1. Hash from a switchmode power supply (I've had this connecting keyboards to some devices). Fixable with a DI to isolate them.

2. If the keyboard is an old analogue 'top octave divider' organ (I'm thinking 70s Farfisa, Vox etc), these have a background noise that is essentially every note sounding simultaneously. It's usually overwhelmed by the note(s) being played and effectively gated when the notes are off, but I recall I could hear a tiny 'tail' of it when I had a Farfisa. So the problem could be with the keyboard's gating, or perhaps the gain structure within it is mis-set (or there's an electronic fault) so the relative level between the notes and the noise is wrong.

Cheers,

David