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i probably want an “audio interface”, that's my going assumption so far, but something that is driving me up the wall is not even the good manufacturers seem to specify whether they can record in stereo. the fact the output is stereo means nothing, what about the input!!!

oh okay, the fact the input of the “scarlett solo” is mono is actually on their site at least (buried deep in the manual, not explicitly stated in the specification list)

oh my god why is every connector standard a compatibility nightmare. the way mono (ts) and stereo (trs) connectors interact is scary enough by itself, but then there's mono with differential pairs (“balanced audio”, also trs)…

from now on i am going to release my music recordings as 2-channel flac files, but instead of the second channel being intended for stereo, it's just the inverse of the first one. i'm calling it “balanced flac”

it won't be mid-side encoded because that would destroy the balanced property

the right audio channel isn't silent, it's just the mid channel of a mid-side-encoded differential pair,

huh, the “zoom ams-22” is a usb audio interface with stereo line-in. true stereo, not mixed down to mono. i think it's the first one like that i've found! it's also like, tiny. weird, fascinating product

hey wait! i have a computer!!! you know, like a computer computer, a big box with a motherboard in it. remember when people bought those?? well, it has integrated sound i/o, like any computer sold this century. and like many such computers, it has three audio jacks: line out, microphone in, and… that's right, stereo line in!!! and wouldn't you know it, the recording quality is fine and doesn't have horrible USB noise. thank god, i've just saved myself so much hassle and expense.

the things we lose in the transition to laptops and smartphones, huh? with a laptop, you're lucky to have even a single audio input channel, whereas your average PC has three!

many pc motherboards have eight audio output channels too (7.1 surround). i think mine does as well, but it's one of those more compact models with just 3 ports rather than 6, so i would need to do some driver shenanigans to switch the functions of the ports (yes that's a thing)

haha omg it even has 192kHz, 24-bit recording

there's no way the noise floor is low enough on this thing that 24-bit is worth it, but hey this is still way better than your average usb audio device can do :3

anyway here's a song from the yamaha psr-350 recorded via my pc's stereo line-in. https://hikari.noyu.me/etc/2023-07-30-psr-350-song-009-Sometime.flac

(does the fact i didn't try to filter out the noise mean you can steal my encryption keys now? lol)

what did we learn from this? pc users stay winning and usb delenda est, but we knew that already

omg… since i have line-in monitoring turned on, and my keyboard is turned on and connected to my pc via both line-in and my usb midi interface, i can just use it as my normal midi synth for everything. like, i can hear its output and normal sound from my computer. this is the 1990's pc midi dream

ah goddamnit that introduces noise from the usb midi interface

ok so, having my usb midi interface connected seems to unavoidably create an audible (circa -32dB) hum when recording my keyboard's audio output. is this the kind of thing that's avoided if i get an audio interface with a built-in midi interface? the midi interface i have might just be bad though

i think it is telling that that all the usb audio interfaces out there only seem to require special drivers on windows, not on apple platforms. i think the devices are usb audio class compliant and the drivers mainly exist to work around the windows audio stack sucking lmao

ok so i ended up buying a used “Steinberg UR22mkII”. it's much like any other two-channel usb audio interface, but i wanted this particular one because:

• both input channels have xlr/6.35mm combo jacks, so i can use a so-called “insert cable” to connect it to my keyboard's unbalanced stereo jack
• both inputs are designed to allow line-level input, and the hi-z and phantom power are switchable, so no amplifier explosion
• it's a class-compliant usb device, so i don't need to install drivers and it works on any operating system
• it's also a midi interface (in and out), so i can eliminate two potential ground loop sources with this box, not just one, and i only need a single usb cable :3
• steinberg/yamaha are pretty trustworthy
• it has a very sturdy and attractive metal construction

it arrived today and i've just started using it. it feels just as solid as i expected, it's really pleasant to physically interact with. it was plug-and-play, as expected. the audio quality is excellent and free of noise, as expected.

one drawback: it seems to be downmixing to mono for the earphone (zero-latency monitoring) output. i think that's configurable in the custom drivers, so i may end up installing those anyway. but the recording received by my laptop is definitely stereo! so i'm still very happy with it.

ah, no, it's always mono monitoring i think; i should have read the block diagram. well, that's fine with me :)

i am now just filling up my ssd with flac files recorded from my keyboard playing back various midis <3

@hikari is it 1kHz or 50/60Hz or something else

@rcombs here's a spectrogram if that helps

@rcombs left is before connecting the midi interface, right is after

@hikari oh, so it was always there, but connecting the interface made it louder? hmmmmmmm

okay maybe this is something something rectified european AC (thus 100 instead of 50)? maybe off a crappy power supply?

and maybe connecting the external device is creating a ground loop and exacerbating the existing problem?

@rcombs yeah probably. i suspect the usb buss power from my pc is quite noisy and i doubt this cheap usb midi interface is properly isolated. also, the keyboard has its own psu which might not be good either. i generally am very suspicious of the quality of my ac power lol

@hikari huh, so somewhere around 100Hz, with a whole lot of harmonics? that's… unexpected, not sure what the source would be :/

@rcombs well, considering there's at least two power supplies involved here, there's plenty of possible sources of noise

@hikari do you have things plugged into separate outlets? how much stuff here has ground connections? is there a MIDI cable involved that had continuity from shield to shield?

@rcombs uhh, the pc is connected to the same power strip as the keyboard's power brick, but only the pc is earthed. the midi interface is a unit with three fixed/integrated cables: one usb (power and i/o) and two midi

@rcombs @hikari to my completely untrained eyes, it looks like the 100hz (+harmonics) noise is still present on the left, but just quieter. Could it just be an amplifier being turned on?

@hikari do you have a spare PCI slot for a Sound Blaster 16?

@hikari it took me until this post to realize you weren't reverse engineering some weird computer keyboard with an inexplicable audio output 😅

@PaddyCo new side-channel just dropped

@hikari is this one of the songs that come premade on the yamaha psr-950?

@mikoedit i can't find a keyboard by that name, but uh, if that was something yamaha made circa 2000, quite possibly

@hikari if you downsample from 192 kHz you get to lower your noise floor too!

@whitequark oh huh, how does that work?

@hikari @whitequark When downsampling, multiple samples become one, noise is different in the different samples and (mostly) cancels out when averaged, while signal is mostly the same and so it stays

That's my guess anyways, I'm not an audio engineer 🤷‍♀️

@quirk @hikari yes

@whitequark @quirk oh, right, just like with downsampling images

@hikari you could use this to control a bunch of galvanometers and make a really cool laser show!!

@whitequark poor catgirl's glasgow

@hikari see also the Roland GO:MIXER which I have and it works well. Not without some complaints but overall it is fine.

@hikari I remember somebody encountering an MP3 file like that some years ago on hydrogenaudio forums. Took a while for somebody to figure out why the file played fine on headphones, but mostly as silence through phone speaker.

@jernej__s and if you play it through stereo speakers, you'll get wonderful comb filtering 😊

@hikari at least there's USB-C nowadays =^-^=

@hikari the problem here is that most audio interfaces are going to have balanced inputs, but I doubt that keyboard has a balanced output; you're right, it's probably stereo

your best options are probably USB mixing boards that might have an aux input, or something like the Scarlett 2i2 (that has multiple balanced inputs) plus a splitter to connect your keyboard to two of the inputs

@hikari then there's products like this that are cheap, probably too cheap, I wouldn't trust them to actually be the good kind of USB audio device... but they are made for what you're after https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/UCA222--behringer-u-control-uca222-usb-audio-interface

(you'd need a TRS->2xRCA adapter with it, but that's fine)

@demize oh right yes this thing absolutely does not provide a differential pair

@hikari yeah you'd want the Scarlett 2i2 for stereo in

@hikari This might not be helpful, but you can probably work it out from the number of input channels (if they publish that number)?

My Zoom H5 recorder, for example, has 4 channels: Two for the built-in stereo microphone, and one for each of the two XLR inputs. This isn't something that's ever explained or made clear in the documentation or sales literature though - I had to figure it out from owning the thing and using it.

@hikari Wait, what does the keyboard connect to to record it, before I just recommend you well, audio isolation transformers.

@flying_bun oh to be clear i'm asking what kind of recording equipment to buy, generally, not how i avoid noise with some existing setup

@hikari Ah, then you need an interface, something like a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 or above can be ideal. Those avoid a lot of noise by being external to your PC and just being well designed.

The Focusrite Scarlett series in generally I say is well received and supported. But I would always go at least for the 2i2 (or more inputs if you have plans)

@hikari For some reason I thought you were talking about a computer keyboard and I was scratching my head as to why it had a 6.35 mm audio output

Someone should make a computer keyboard with a 6.35 mm audio output 🤔​

@hikari I'm no expert! But I do own a audio interface for recording from a mic and a guitar onto my computer!
And I use a behringer UMC204HD, and that's been good for me! I also heard the Focusrite Scarlett is pretty good!

Hopefully this helps!

@hikari

The Focusrite Scarlett line has been the go-to for a few years. Most manufacturers are more or less copying it so the feature set you see on most entry level interfaces will be roughly the same. In general, interfaces don't have stereo inputs (if they do take TRS it's usually balanced mono) so you'll almost definitely need a splitting adapter no matter what.

A mixer with USB interface is also an option. I'm not very read up on those admittedly. Dedicated interfaces will probably have less noise, but mixers do make things simpler.

To save money, I recommend buying used as €100 is really pushing it nowadays. Vend and Blocket are good for within Sweden. Reverb and eBay internationally. If buying new, avoid Behringer. Their labour practices are abhorrent.