Understanding and Fixing Ground Loops in Live Sound

Audio Engineer David Wills’ (Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston) personal toolkit developed from over 30 years in the business.

Perfect for any Musician, Audio Engineer or Music Producer. The kit includes our EQ Cheat Sheet, Live Sound Checklist, Mixing Tricks, Compression Chart & Interviews by Grammy Award Winning Engineers.

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David Wills

[vittoriaeterna]

This is an EXCELLENT video. David Wills is a mastermind.

[JBMAGNUM]

This is a perfectly detailed and informative presentation! We'll done and thanks for sharing 👍🏾

[BasementBerean]

2:00 The green ground wire in a standard USA 120V residential electrical system goes back to the same place (the neutral bus bar in the circuit breaker box) as the neutral wire. The "ground" wire provides a second, fail safe route back there in case of a short within the AC powered device. You might say that the "ground" wire prevents a human from being the ground in case a short within a device occurs and the outside of the device goes hot and a person touches it, causing the current to go through them, and the ground, to find it's way "home" so to speak. But, the ground (green) wire goes back to the breaker box and attaches to the neutral bus. That neutral bus bar in the circuit breaker box is grounded (for lightning strikes), but people saying, or giving me the impression, that the "ground" wire goes into the ground has kept me from understanding how AC really works until I recently really had to learn for myself.

[MathCuriousity]

Just curious - if I get shocked touching two appliances at once but not either alone, is that me creating a ground loop? How does that work?! Thanks!

[GregoryGuay]

I have a modest home studio, but I’ve been reading about star grounding, was hoping you would mention something here, but do you have any other explanations of this for those of us that have the luxury of wiring scratch? Simply do a run or every audio dedicated outlet?

[TheGothicSecret]

Man. Thank you. You explain it just excellent. Specifically with image with the samr outlet for two devices

[giovannigalvez]

I like your story about the power supply issue. Now at live gigs there are so many power supplies from phones, laptops, pedals, etc. There are random noise and buzzing sometimes and it's because of this. Not to mention everyone at concerts have their phones out. So we switched to Star Quad XLR cables and that did the trick.

[TurboLoveTrain]

Anyone who does audio needs to watch this.

[JAROCHELOcesarcastro]

Thank you!! I want to learn more about the ISOLATION TRANSFORMER

[bobfunk]

Stuck tongue in toaster, hum went away, it works !

[YourNotSupposedToSee]

Midas M32 is a clean and easy board, I love ‘em!

[elephantgrass]

Great video, but I feel it's incomplete. Yes ground loops happen, and can be solved as per your video. But what's REALLY happening? What specifically a hum? Why not a buzz? Or sometimes both? What's causing a sawtooth like wave to form and not a sine wave? Did it start as a sine wave then get cancelled and sort of turned into a triangle/saw? That's what I'd like to know. Thanks for the video. I feel it's half way there to the complete answer. I'll check out your course.

[PhillipJohnsonphiljo]

I have been trying the lift option on both my breakout usb sound card and my DI box, neither of which do anything to remove the ground hum. Does anyone know why the ground lift option wouldn't work? Is it because I might have multiple ground loop paths through my audio devices? I'm going to try the same power socket for the desktop and laptop in question tonight and see how that goes. My signal cables are decent quality and I am almost sure it's the 2 earth pinned computers that make the ground loop. Here's hoping...

[branislavcrljenica]

6:41 *???* *Let's* *talk* *about* *phase*

[BobGnarley.]

I am plagued by this ground loop that ruins my guitar playing lol. Have tried literally everything I can think of at this point and put a lot of time into solving it.. starts to feel hopeless. Especially with everything in the same socket.. could it be the power strip? could it be the fact the interface is powered by USB? who knows at this point all I know is most other people with a focusrite have no issues lol

[RichardDuenaz]

whats the differance between breaking the ground pin off .and a ground lift switch .im assuming either way .no matter which product used its all the same it disconnects the ground is this correct .if so then either ay still have the same level of risk of death by electrical shock

[PepekBezlepek]

fantastic explanation! I understood exactly what I was missing ♥

[rahulsawant]

Sir, there is noise from speaker when any electrical switch is on or off, can you suggest solution for it ?

[RichardDuenaz]

whats the differance between breaking the ground pin off .and a ground lift switch .im assuming either way .nomatter which product used its all the same it disconnects the ground is this correct

[StagnantMizu]

I got the humming noise, my DAC and amp are on the same powerstrip but none of them have a ground pin. should I connect the chassis of my DAC to the signal ground on my amp? or wtf is happening