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Question about grounding a keyboard


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I've twice played the same outdoor venue where there is a battery pack they provide for me to plug into. Both times my amp buzzed terribly when I turned the keyboard on. I'm not very knowledgeable about this stuff, but the drummer said the keyboard wasn't grounded. The most recent time the problem was solved by running an extension chord from a real outlet.

 

Does this seem like a grounding issue?

Is there something I should be doing it plugging into a batter pack of some kind?

 

Thanks!

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This keyboard is GROUNDED. 0:30 mark.

 

[video:youtube]

 

Most keyboards these days use a wall warts with 2 prongs which by definition is ungrounded by design. You couldn't ground it if you wanted to. Keyboards today also are very sensitive to picking up line noise from computers and electronic devices. Like battery units not designed for audio.

FunMachine.

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Nearby cell phone bleeding 1s and 0s into your feed?

 

A battery powered AC convertor should be very quiet. Maybe some are better than others. Maybe your wall wart is getting skeevy, those are usually pretty cheaply made.

 

Eliminate the variables, it's the only useful thing I learned in Algebra.

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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We get that from some amp now and then when I worked in the studio. We had an isolation transformer we'd plug the amp into the transformer and transformer into the wall. That dam transformer weighted a ton for such a small thing. These days you should be able like one of rack mount power conditioners. Power conditioners and UPS's both should clean the noise from the wall.
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I keep one of THESE in my gig bag. It has saved the day more than once.

 

Originally by Ebtech, the Hum Eliminator comes in a 1/4" only version or the 1/4" and XLR version as in the link. Ebtech also used to make the Hum X which I also have and does help in certain situations. But it looks like that unit may no longer be offered. On second thought HERE is the new version.

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I Play, Therefore I Am

 

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I feel sooo bad for that kid.

 

Kid - they say experience teaches you a lot. You cannot pay for that kind of education, yet the lessons are all really expensive.

J.S. Bach Well Tempered Klavier

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Stevie Wonder Songs in the Key of Life

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A battery powered AC convertor should be very quiet.

 

Should be, if it's a pure sine wave converter. Those are considerably more expensive than a modified sine wave converter, which will have all sorts of harmonics which could well couple into the audio output, or more likely interact with a keyboard's switching mode power supply and create all sorts of noisy havoc.

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Are you sure it"s the keyboard, not the amp? Amp hum can sometimes be cured by the use of a ground lifter plug. Unless you have an electronic device sitting directly on top of your (what kind of?) keyboard, it should be quiet and well-behaved.

Kawai KG-2C, Nord Stage 3 73, Electro 4D, 5D and Lead 2x, Moog Voyager and Little Phatty Stage II, Slim Phatty, Roland Lucina AX-09, Hohner Piano Melodica, Spacestation V3, pair of QSC 8.2s.

 

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Thanks for all the suggestions. I have a standard Casio weighted keyboard with nothing on top. Could be the amp or keyboard; I really have no idea. All I know is that when it was plugged into an outlet in the nearby building, as opposed to the power pack, the buzz went away.
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