Hey y’all,
This has been driving me crazy. I have a board full of guitar pedals and a few synths running to a mixer and into a Scarlett 2i2, I then run the line outputs from the Scarlett into the Digitakt Inputs to sample all/any of the instruments connected. When I try to sample anything I get a loud, electronic buzz. (See photo above, no signal or noise going in but the levels in the sample screen are bouncing around) After disconnecting everything and starting fresh, I discovered that I could get a clean sample only if I unplugged Digitakt’s audio outs to the mixer. This way of sampling is not sustainable. What am I doing wrong? Is there a Digitakt setting I’ve got wrong? (I’ve tried adjusting things in DT’s external mixer) Has anyone in the world had this issue? It’s been difficult for me to find anything posted that about this type of problem. Many thanks in advance.
It sounds like a ground loop
Does your mixer have a ground lift?
Do you have Make Up Gain on the Compressor? I recently discovered when internally resampling that it can generate quite a bit of noise into things.
Edit: NVM, I misread the original post, sorry.
Definitely sounds like a ground loop issue. Why I have all my gear plugged into the one socket atm, though I don’t have enough to be concerned about overloading it.
I’ve been having a related problem since 1.50 (that’s when i noticed it anyway) where the recorder is picking up a signal even when nothing in connected to the inputs.
See attached vid (note the MEM flipping between 2’00" and 1’99" too). Might be due to the compressor, but this happens with the comp at full-dry and 0 makeup gain here.
I’m using a Yamaha MG10. I’m still fairly new to this world so even if I knew what a ground lift was (I don’t) I wouldn’t know what to do with it if I had it.
Sure you don’t have the Digitakt outputs connected to the inputs the way you connected everything?
Could be a feedback loop. What happens if you mute the fader where DT is connected to; instead of unplugging the outputs. Or turn the master output knob to zero.
If above isn’t the case you could try to swap cables.
Muting the fader doesn’t do anything, the levels still bounce around with no signal. I attempted to swap some cables around too, to no avail. @tubefund
…even if u sample nothing, auto normalize will give u a snippet of full on static groundnoise as a result…
Removing the inputs stops the jumping levels, so a bit different from what’s happening above.
Hi, I can reproduce it. Even if nothing (!) is connected to the DT besides the PSU.
When Input L, Input R or Input L+R is selected I see the bouncing meter, too. When I move the treshold it will touch the bouncing meter roughly at treshold set to 18.
It’s only happens with SRC set to ‘IN L’ here (and ‘IN L+R’ due to the included ‘L’ channel) when the internal audio is loud enough (overdrive, full track levels, compressor makeup etc).
So the DT’s internal audio is bleeding into the left input source channel ‘IN L’
That bleed is not present in ‘IN R’. Is that what you’re seeing too?
Sorry, my test was different but with a “calming” result:
I just recorded a song from my smartphone using unbalanced cabels at Input L and Input R. No running sequencer on the DT and thus no other sound source.
NO buzzing sounds! Even after reducing the smartphone volume to zero during its playback, the recorded silence was silent after normalization. The preview showed only the recorded music nothing else.
My current summary: The moving meters/levels are only a cosmetic thing, annoying but not relevant.
EDIT: What I forgot to mention: After plugging in cables into DT’s inputs and before connecting my smartphone these moving levels were even higher. Looks like these cables worked as a sort of antenna then. 
This sounds like its either an earth continuity issue, or a line / instrument level issue to me.
Couple of thigs to check:
Ensure that all balanced inputs and outputs on all devices have the correct type of cables. Balanced cables for balanced inputs and outputs, unbalanced cables for unbalnced inputs and outputs, and unbalanced cables when connecting balanced to unbalanced ins and outs.
This ensures earth continuity where its needed, and ensures there isnt any non terminated earths floating around the system.
Ensure that where instrument level is needed and where line level is needed the appropriate input is selected on the mg10 and the focusrite. If your outputing a line level into a preamp that thinks its an instrument level at any point that will cause you issues.
And lastly, if it were me i would use a DI box to lift the ground and give me balanced line level into the dt.