FM3 DI Troubleshooting

[Santiago Dieguez]

TBH, I'm kind of surprised Fractal Audio didn't, after replacing 3 units that work fine when returned, didn't offer any advice. Did they not have any ideas?

They have been always helpful so they offered me a full refund. But I don’t want to go that way since I was always happy with my tone and my sound. You know when you find a tone you really like and you get used to your gear you don’t want to change.

They have no idea what it could be… but they told me all the units they replaced they worked totally find on their end.

 

[Santiago Dieguez]

I thought you ruled out the unit itself being the problem.

I think of that because doesn’t happen with other gear i used here….

 

[Santiago Dieguez]

Yes, I remember reading a similar thread a while back. I think it was a weird noise that sometimes went away when he reset his main AC breaker. Or maybe that was you...

Yes that was the thread it was me and after that I bought the Furman as it was suggested

 

[Santiago Dieguez]

I've got to knock off for the night.

Let us know what taking it to a friend's place does? If that does fix it, I'd call an electrician.

Sure man I will do that. Many thanks for staying late today.

Have a good night

 

[TSJMajesty]

Do you think if this could be a ground issue?

You can speculate all you want, but since it seems like you've isolated the issue to something related to the electric supply in your house, you need to go in that direction.
It could be a grounding issue, some type of bonding issue, polarity, how the loads are distributed throughout your house..., interference on the line...

 

[TSJMajesty]

I think of that because doesn’t happen with other gear i used here….

Doesn't necessarily matter. Like someone mentioned, the Fractal may just be more sensitive.

 

[DJD100]

Anyone check the input noise gate?

 

[GitGuy513]

This may have no relation whatsoever and may seem way in out left field (or right field), but am I the only one who remembers a thread by a guy from London who was having crazy issues with his FM3 (in this case more major EMI crud) who began the thread stating when he would cycle the breaker or the FM3 it would solve the problem for a period. Anyway, I don’t know what became of the situation because everyone was baffled and seemed to come to the conclusion there was an issue from the Mains AC.

Having said this, I follow the present F’d up world situation closely and many European countries and especially the UK are planning some fun social exercises in the upcoming months (especially the winter) to screw with the power grid and other utilities us peons have come to accept as common modern expectations. Of course the excuse is because of Russia and Ukraine. Anyway, I find it interesting this bizarre problem is seeming to boil down to mains power issue.

Finally, if this post is too offensive or too off topic let me know and I will gladly delete it.

Oh and my advise to the other guy, always have a quality DMM, Outlet checker, and I love having an Oscilloscope, but that’s not always possible and finally get a qualified electrician to check out the situation.

Hopefully, I’m wrong and there is a much simpler and common solution.

Edit:
My hypothesis: I’m from the land of 60 cycle AC, but I imagine if the power companies are messing with experimenting with rolling brown or black outs having 50 cycle AC drop below the voltage and generation level could really throw off sensitive digital equipment, especially with switching PSU, etc.

 

[unix-guy]

This may have no relation whatsoever and may seem way in out left field (or right field), but am I the only one who remembers a thread by a guy from London who was having crazy issues with his FM3 (in this case more major EMI crud) who began the thread stating when he would cycle the breaker or the FM3 it would solve the problem for a period. Anyway, I don’t know what became of the situation because everyone was baffled and seemed to come to the conclusion there was an issue from the Mains AC.

Having said this, I follow the present F’d up world situation closely and many European countries and especially the UK are planning some fun social exercises in the upcoming months (especially the winter) to screw with the power grid and other utilities us peons have come to accept as common modern expectations. Of course the excuse is because of Russia and Ukraine. Anyway, I find it interesting this bizarre problem is seeming to boil down to mains power issue.

Finally, if this post is too offensive or too off topic let me know and I will gladly delete it.

Oh and my advise to the other guy, always have a quality DMM, Outlet checker, and I love having an Oscilloscope, but that’s not always possible and finally get a qualified electrician to check out the situation.

Hopefully, I’m wrong and there is a much simpler and common solution.

Yes that was the thread it was me and after that I bought the Furman as it was suggested

 

[Randall d]

The Furman is just a filter. It is not an entirely new and isolated source of power. An Online UPS is a separately derived power source created from your power source, but completely isolated from it. This eliminates noise and harmonics that could be existing in your power which could be causing you issues. For that matter, if you want to just test the idea, just get any UPS and charge it up, Then disconnect it from your power and run your FM3 on just its battery. That is a completely isolated power source. If the problem goes away, then you know your power is the problem.

 

[GitGuy513]

So this is the same guy??

 

[TSJMajesty]

This may have no relation whatsoever and may seem way in out left field (or right field), but am I the only one who remembers a thread by a guy from London who was having crazy issues with his FM3...

No, you're not. I mentioned it above, and that I also remember it was some sort of noise issue at that time.
My point is not to say, "I said it first!", but instead to mention that, at first it seemed like deja vu, and this certainly seems to be something in his local power, that, since it doesn't affect his other gear, but only the FM3, I for one hope it gets resolved, and we all learn what it is. Because this is not only weird, but seems to be extremely rare, and has some type of FM3 sensitivity? issue with it.

Basically, I'm just really curious as to wtf is causing his issue (as I'm sure he is too!)

 

[GitGuy513]

No, you're not. I mentioned it above, and that I also remember it was some sort of noise issue at that time.
My point is not to say, "I said it first!", but instead to mention that, at first it seemed like deja vu, and this certainly seems to be something in his local power, that, since it doesn't affect his other gear, but only the FM3, I for one hope it gets resolved, and we all learn what it is. Because this is not only weird, but seems to be extremely rare, and has some type of FM3 sensitivity? issue with it.

Basically, I'm just really curious as to wtf is causing his issue (as I'm sure he is too!)

Dang I read through the whole thread and missed your mentioning of the this. Credit is not important to me at all. The whole time I was like this is strange, this Deja Vu. He must have changed his avatar. Which is no problem because I have too. However I do remember things is odd ways.

 

[TSJMajesty]

Dang I read through the whole thread and missed your mentioning of the this. Credit is not important to me at all. The whole time I was like this is strange, this Deja Vu. He must have changed his avatar. Which is no problem because I have too. However I do remember things is odd ways.

I actually didn't feel the deja vu until he said he cycled his main breaker and that sometimes fixed the problem, temporarily, mainly because in his other thread it was some type of noise issue. Not this low gain thing here. I was about to write: "It's not the Fractal, Redux."

 

[Santiago Dieguez]

You can speculate all you want, but since it seems like you've isolated the issue to something related to the electric supply in your house, you need to go in that direction.
It could be a grounding issue, some type of bonding issue, polarity, how the loads are distributed throughout your house..., interference on the line...

do you think a UPS could solve this? does a ups solve polarity, grounding issues?

its not so easy to get an electrician since I need to ask permission to the landlord here before anything. And of course would ask me the reason why I want one... (kind of difficult to explain everything works here except from my fractal audio fm3)

 

[Santiago Dieguez]

This may have no relation whatsoever and may seem way in out left field (or right field), but am I the only one who remembers a thread by a guy from London who was having crazy issues with his FM3 (in this case more major EMI crud) who began the thread stating when he would cycle the breaker or the FM3 it would solve the problem for a period. Anyway, I don’t know what became of the situation because everyone was baffled and seemed to come to the conclusion there was an issue from the Mains AC.

Having said this, I follow the present F’d up world situation closely and many European countries and especially the UK are planning some fun social exercises in the upcoming months (especially the winter) to screw with the power grid and other utilities us peons have come to accept as common modern expectations. Of course the excuse is because of Russia and Ukraine. Anyway, I find it interesting this bizarre problem is seeming to boil down to mains power issue.

Finally, if this post is too offensive or too off topic let me know and I will gladly delete it.

Oh and my advise to the other guy, always have a quality DMM, Outlet checker, and I love having an Oscilloscope, but that’s not always possible and finally get a qualified electrician to check out the situation.

Hopefully, I’m wrong and there is a much simpler and common solution.

Edit:
My hypothesis: I’m from the land of 60 cycle AC, but I imagine if the power companies are messing with experimenting with rolling brown or black outs having 50 cycle AC drop below the voltage and generation level could really throw off sensitive digital equipment, especially with switching PSU, etc.

i just had a friend from a different country telling me exactly that. there was a friend of him that was having problem with his equipment (not music related) and found out with an oscilloscope that the voltage was right but he was only getting 35hz from the power company.

I can see that you have more knowledge than me on this field.

Do you think an UPS would help me solve all this?

UPS + my Furman?

 

[Santiago Dieguez]

The Furman is just a filter. It is not an entirely new and isolated source of power. An Online UPS is a separately derived power source created from your power source, but completely isolated from it. This eliminates noise and harmonics that could be existing in your power which could be causing you issues. For that matter, if you want to just test the idea, just get any UPS and charge it up, Then disconnect it from your power and run your FM3 on just its battery. That is a completely isolated power source. If the problem goes away, then you know your power is the problem.

Randall thanks man.

just a question if I get an UPS should i get 500watts ?

Noob question on this. Does the UPS gives me clean power all the time? without disconnecting the power?

 

[Santiago Dieguez]

No, you're not. I mentioned it above, and that I also remember it was some sort of noise issue at that time.
My point is not to say, "I said it first!", but instead to mention that, at first it seemed like deja vu, and this certainly seems to be something in his local power, that, since it doesn't affect his other gear, but only the FM3, I for one hope it gets resolved, and we all learn what it is. Because this is not only weird, but seems to be extremely rare, and has some type of FM3 sensitivity? issue with it.

Basically, I'm just really curious as to wtf is causing his issue (as I'm sure he is too!)

exactly man, this issue is driving me crazy since i dont want to give up on fractal

 

[Santiago Dieguez]

Dang I read through the whole thread and missed your mentioning of the this. Credit is not important to me at all. The whole time I was like this is strange, this Deja Vu. He must have changed his avatar. Which is no problem because I have too. However I do remember things is odd ways.

Didn't change my avatar. But great you remember man!

I am getting more gear (now a ups it seems) so I can finally use my fm3 as intended! its crazy but it helps a lot your answers and also the support I got from fractal from all the units they replaced.

The level of support is amazing. That is another reason why I don't want to give up on Fractal.

 

[Santiago Dieguez]

I actually didn't feel the deja vu until he said he cycled his main breaker and that sometimes fixed the problem, temporarily, mainly because in his other thread it was some type of noise issue. Not this low gain thing here. I was about to write: "It's not the Fractal, Redux."

it was the squealing noise + the guitar not properly responding also, yes... and a lot of times the unit getting frozen until I power cycled it.