Electrical Buzzing Throughout Basement Studio

Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 3:09 pm

Upon finishing of the basement in my house, I built a mostly sound-proof control room into a perfect, little area and acoustically treated most of the basement with high-density insulation all around. I even went so far as to isolate all of the electrical outlets in the control room and the treated areas with their own electrical box and high-shielded cable. I spent so much money on all of this treatment, however a very annoying occurrance keeps happening.

Any time electric bass or guitar is being played there is aweful buzzing happening. I have come to the conclusion that it is due to the light-dimmer switches. The buzzing changes when the switches are turned on/off or up/down and the noise increases/decreases when you face the direction of one or turn away. There are select directions of the basement where no noise happens, however, in the 360-degree array, I would say those areas make up less than 45-degrees total. Of course, this is especially bad for any time a guitar with single-coil pickups is plugged in.

Is there anything that I can do about this? It is awefully degrading to tell a guitarist recording in my studio to face a certain direction with all of the lights turned off to eliminate this buzzing in recordings.

Thanks so much for the help. I will be eagerly looking forward to your responses.

Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 3:47 pm

Vinnie, this is an all too common problem with triac electronic light dimmers. They in fact do not reduce voltage but merely clip the top and bottom of the 60 hertz electrical sinewave. This clipping of the sinewave creates all sorts of harmonic distortion upon the AC lines. The lines act like antennas and transmit this, a specially to open transformers called guitar pickups. There are other brands of electronic light dimmers designed to reduce RF interference. I find that these are still a problem and one shouldn't even consider utilizing dimable compact fluorescent lights. That's awful times two. To prevent this terrible scenario, real studios frequently use large, hot running, rheostats, which are actually large wire wound volume controls that actually do increase and decrease a fully intact 60 hertz sinewave. It's really the only kind of light dimmer that should be used in a recording studio environment. The problem is, they are quite large, heavy, expensive and you are generally restricted to around 600 W per unit. So you'll need multiple units for the average studio. Big bucks. They don't fit where little electronic dimmers fit. And at about 7 pounds each, are not easily mounted either. Some folks actually mount them in large aluminum wall mount boxes. Because mounting within the wall does not always offer the depth required for mounting.

Plus, you really may have been told to balance the electrical draw from your 240 volts, single phase electrical panel? For a home Project studio, this really isn't a good idea. Simply because, your lighting service will be shared with your electronics service. Because the electrical draw from your audio equipment will generally be substantially less than multiple incandescent lights, I recommend that all of your electronics equipment should be powered from a single side of your 240 volt panel. The other side of the 240 volt feed, should be dedicated to your lighting and other industrial applications such as vacuum cleaners. But this still may not improve what flat wound guitar pickups can receive. I don't think I've worked in any studio, large or small, where we couldn't find a quieter null for a guitarist by rotating them. Unfortunate but true. But that's the art of making good recordings, keeping them quiet.

I'm never quiet I just buzz along. Hey! Don't Bogart that joint.
Ms. Remy Ann David

Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2007 3:58 pm

Thanks so much Remy. I guess I will just have to deal with the buzzing until I get my own indpendant place.

About the separate electrical panel:
Only the electronics service for the studio area/control room are on the panel. All of the lights in the basement are on the main house line.

Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 4:40 am

Why do you actually need dimmers? Replace them with manually switched circuits, and use lower-wattage bulbs. If you want really dim ones, maybe you can try 240V bulbs from a specialist electrical distributer. If we want bright lights over here in Europe, we reach for the 120V bulbs. They double up for flash photography, and gunfire FX as well.

Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 7:35 am

Actually the best things to use in a recording studio is NO Dimmers but if you have to have the use AUTOFOMERS like these http://variac.com/staco_120_ph1.htm.

A good way to check to see how much hash a wall mounted dimmer is putting out is to take a portable AM radio tune it off station and hold it near the dimmer. If the dimmer is good you will hear very little hash in the receiver. If it is bad you will hear a lot of what sounds like bad static in the radio.

I personally have never heard of anyone using a rheostat for dimming lights except in old theaters where they used DC current and an auto-former would not work.

Best of luck!

Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 9:08 am

Why don't you just have more switches. You want less light, use lower wattage bulbs. Then when you want more light use more bulbs with a higher wattage. Just add more switches.....home depot anyone.

This seems to be the best solution to me. 6 or more sockets on 4 or more switches with different wattage bulbs in them to step the increase in lighting.

Dimmers are a BIG no-no. Variacs have their issues too.

Posted: Tue Nov 13, 2007 12:32 pm

Quote:

They in fact do not reduce voltage but merely clip the top and bottom of the 60 hertz electrical sinewave. This clipping of the sinewave creates all sorts of harmonic distortion upon the AC lines.

By top and bottom I am assuming you mean start time???
Check out page four, this is what your TRIAC based dimmer is doing:
http://www.kettering.edu/~bguru/PEAC2AC/LiteDimmer.pdf

This allows snippets of the AC voltage to pass to the load (the lights in this case). This reduces the amount of engery availble for the load.

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