Here's what I'm dealing with if. Seriously thinking about selling my PC and getting a new MBP. I've changed a lot of things in the BIOS with out any luck.
Holy crap! Well, obviously this is some kind of alien spacecraft attempting communication.
What caused the variance in the noise?
Here's what I'm dealing with if. Seriously thinking about selling my PC and getting a new MBP. I've changed a lot of things in the BIOS with out any luck.
Is you soundcard connected to PC by USB cable? Have you tried another one with chokes?
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Can you find in Event Viewer any events of "Error" type, by the time when this cracks happen?
Maybe you have problems with USB port/driver...
Hi @skoczy. The UAD Apollo Twin is connected to my PC via Thunderbolt.
Are there any errors in event viewer, when this noise happens?
Right-click and hold the Start icon. Choose Event Viewer -> Windows Logs - > System.
There you have a list of events registered by Windows system.
Nothing related to your device?
Here's what I'm dealing with if. Seriously thinking about selling my PC and getting a new MBP. I've changed a lot of things in the BIOS with out any luck.
That doesn't sound like electromagnetic noise from the guitar's pickups. What does a vocal-mic connected to your audio-interface sound like? If that sounds as horrible you need to check the signal-chain from the audio-interface to the computer. Also hook up a headset to the profiler. The noise should be audible in that headset if it originates from the guitar.
@heldal I have no trouble when recording a mic. I have a Neumann TLM 102 and I've been recording acoustic guitar and vocals with it and the same computer + audio interface and no problem. Dead silent. It's only when recording electric guitars and using a distorted tone (gain over 6.0) that I get this noise 
@heldal I have no trouble when recording a mic. I have a Neumann TLM 102 and I've been recording acoustic guitar and vocals with it and the same computer + audio interface and no problem. Dead silent. It's only when recording electric guitars and using a distorted tone (gain over 6.0) that I get this noise
Then we're back to magnetic noise. If the noise disappear when you are away from the computer the only solution is some form of magnetic shield. The computer itself can be contained as I've described earlier in the thread . Slightly worse is if the problem is with the display. Some TFT-monitors are terribly noisy.
@fannar182 I just replied to your post on another forum. Found the same thing here, read these two pages, and decided to respond. Everyone, sorry for reviving an old thread.
Were you able to fix this issue since posting about it?
I have absolutely the same problem with my pc, not on a macbook though. Doesn't matter if the macbook is running on battery or connected to the same socket as my pc or a different one. Interface is RME fireface UCX, no matter if I record directly or via Kemper. When the pc is running, noise is being picked up by guitar. Humbucker, single, p90, doesn't matter. Since everyone is suggesting it is transferred via guitar cable, I tried playing with vox amplug running on a battery and listening through headphones - same noisy crap.
I don't have mechanical drives in my pc, only 2 ssd's. Big graphics card, 3 fans with a fan controller, aftermarket CPU cooler and PSU with it's own fan which cannot be deactivated.
Now this noise happens whenever the computer is doing something, so it seems CPU related. Right click, opening a file, moving content on screen, even moving the mouse cursor causes it.
edit: Oh yeah, fannar, after listening to your file, it sounds like the PSU dirt, try getting close to macboook's power brick, you'll hear the same dirty noise. My noise is high-pitched and in intervals.
I can't listen to your clip now but could it be this (the part about preamp chips failing on the ucx):
It isn't, because it stops when I put the computer to sleep or shut it off. When I walk around with vox amplug, completely disconnected from kemper or fireface, the same high-pitched noise is present.
Edit: I just made a video with an open case, gpu disconnected, ssd's disconnected, and it's definitely a cpu generated noise.
Now imagine being inside of an os, running a project in your daw when cpu does something like this all the time.
Do you still hear the same noise when the computer screen is turned off? How close is the guitar in relation to the computer and screen?
@nakedzen I'm gonna try those now, and @Grumpter the noise is there when the screen is off. In this exagerated example I got very close in the beginning of the video, and when I sat down, it was about 50 cm away (20"), maybe a bit more. And in usual recording/playing conditions, it's about a meter away (around 3 feet).
edit: Well, here's an interesting one: the mouse makes half the noise. The polling rate of my mouse is 1000 Hz, when I cycled through 500, 250 and finally 125, the frequency of the noise changes, and at 125 it's almost inaudible. That's why whenever I moved a window or a cursor or whatever, I could hear that noise. I tried a wireless mouse, and by hearing the frequency, I'm guessing it's at 500 Hz, still audible, but not as bad as 1000. As I said, it's only half the noise:
the cpu still makes noise when doing stuff, and it's still a high-pitched one, as you have heard when I moved through bios settings. I tried bios and windows environment again, with mouse disconnected; with another keyboard, and it's definitely the cpu. So, ideally the guitar should be at least 1.2 meters (4 feet) away from the computer, ideally 1.7 (5.7 feet) or more, well, at least in my case.
But then again, laptop is so much cleaner, there is noise, a dirtier one, lower in frequency, literally noise, as in brown, white, pink, and you have to get really close with the guitar to pick it up.
I have yet to try and build a Faraday cage for the computer...
Now I'm off to read about C and P states and how they affect all of this.
Cheers
I also had a similar problem a couple of months ago. It turned out that my smartphone was "amplifying" that CPU noise and getting it into the speakers. It wasn't so loud though. Experiment by switching off your smartphone and other devices around.
The only interference with phones that I got is the standard reception noise that is heard when phone is near the speakers, or the internal processing of the device itself when I put it directly at the pickup.
Well, I got the solution! First, all of the things add up, and increase the noise, so as usual: keep away from the computer, turn off dimmable lights, turn off led strip if you have any, reduce the polling rate on the mouse (this is actually not that big of a deal, as long as you don't move the mouse), rotate yourself so that the interference is lowest at that position. The thing that removed the noise heard in my two videos is the disabling of C1E, C3 and C6 states in BIOS (or UEFI if you have a newer board). It is completely gone now, and the only noise I have is the regular noise of a high-gain setup. These states do not affect the performance of your computer, but do affect low power, or idle states, as in when you're reading something on the web, or computer is in sleep or hibernate mode (about to do a power consumption measurement with C states on vs off). Keep in mind that this is with an Intel 2500K CPU with a Gigabyte Z68 board.
Well, @fannar182, I hope you found your solution in the meantime, or this one will help you when you come back here.
First of all I would like to thank you @danijelsh so much for tagging me and sharing your experience with me. I posted both here and on tonymacx86.com and I got no solutions out of it. No one could point me in the right direction. My PC build is a Hackintosh I put together my self, Gigabyte Z170 Designare Mobo, i7-6700 and GTX 980 graphic card.
The computer is a beast. I'm running the newest Sierra version, newest Pro Tools version, all the Native Instruments stuff, Maschine 2, XLN Audio, the current version of Premiere Pro and everything works 100%. I work for a TV station so I edit a lot of shows (video editing) and I also do audio-post for various TV shows here in Iceland. I've done probably over 80 tv-audio mixes on my new Hackintosh and edited about 20 shows and mixed about 10 songs and no problem at all.
The only thing that is wrong with it is that I can't record electric guitar, plane and simple. I can record audio through my mic (Neumann TLM 102) without a problem, dead silent. I've recorded vocals and acoustic guitar and it's perfect through my UAD Apollo Twin interface. BUT when recording electric guitar (PRS Custom 22 into a Kemper, stereo xlr out into the UAD Apollo Twin) I get so much electric noise/interference that its totally worthless. I've tried everything. I've switched electric outlets, bought new instrument cables and xlr cables. Moved the Kemper around and the PC. Turned off nearly every electric device in the house but the noise is always there. I disconnected the WIFI card inside the Hackintosh and removed the secondary HDD (my main drive is a SSD) but that didn't work either.
The noise in your videos are EXACTLY like the noise I get. 100% the same. This guy told me here on the Kemper forum to disable all the C-states in the BIOS and I did but that didn't help either I reached out to Gigabyte support and they told me to update my BIOS to F22 (I have F20) but I'm in a middle of a big project so I wont be taking the chance of messing with the computer and then I just don't see how that update should help me.
The noise is clearly CPU related. When I move the mouse the noise increases. When I open up some apps or my browser the noise gets higher.
All this problem has made it difficult for me to be motivated and excited to record guitar and write music which is a shame because of the great, expensive gear I got. I've got the Kemper and I never use it because of this problem. It's just laying around. Such a shame. I'm strongly thinking about selling my new Hackintosh in the summer and buy a overpriced iMac .... Just so I can record a CLEAN guitar signal.
I found a thread yesterday on tonymacx86 where some guy has a noise problem similar to our noise and he than found out it was a ground loop inside the computer? I'm not that good with computers to fix that one my own if that's the problem. I've talked to the store here in Iceland who sold me the computer and they don't have a clue what to do.
And like I said, everything is dead silent always except when I'm recording electric guitar
@fannar182, disabling only C1E didn't work for me, I had to disable all of the C states in my UEFI to stop the noise. I see you disabled all of the C-states and it still didn't work for you. Try reading more about Package C state limit, I see you have it in auto mode; I have an older board (it's in my description on Tony's forum) so I don't have C7, C8 and package C state limit, so I'm not quite sure what they do. I see you also have Intel speed shift technology enabled, I'm not sure what that is, but I think it's something to do with P states. If you have dual boot, try booting into windows, and run Realtemp GT, or CPU-Z or something else (maybe this will work with Wine or in a virtual machine, not sure), I got from couple of other forums that the cpu multiplier won't change if you have C states disabled, so it's possible that you don't have them fully disabled. In the end, I wouldn't advise you to mess too much with the UEFI (without reading and learning about stuff first), especially if you're in the middle of projects.
Did you try the mouse trick? Look (and listen) what happens when polling rate is at 1000Hz, and when it's at 125Hz.
It's still there, but much less, and I don't move it when recording or playing.
What is the situation like when you turn off the computer and listen the kemper through your UAD with monitors or headphones? If you get the noise that way, it's definitely from some other source. I'm also close to a radio station, and had all kinds of interference when recording acoustic guitars (although a cheap mic was to blame).
Edit: Oh yeah, after almost 8 years, I completely ditched the hackintosh about a week ago, after increasing problems with usb 3 behavior and random restarts due to some ethernet kexts. As much as I miss Logic (I still have it on my macbook), I got into Reaper very fast and I'm quite satisfied with it.
@danijelsh Thanks again for the reply.
I have a wireless Apple Magic Mouse and I don't think I can change it's poll settings.
1.) The BIOS wont let me disable the ''Package C state limit''. It only allows me to choose from C0/C1/C2 and up to C9 and then AUTO. So I can't turn that off it seems.
2.) I disabled the ''Intel speed shift technology'' but that didn't do anything.
3.) What do you mean by ''If you have dual boot, try booting into windows, and run Realtemp GT, or CPU-Z or something else (maybe this will work with Wine or in a virtual machine, not sure), I got from couple of other forums that the cpu multiplier won't change if you have C states disabled, so it's possible that you don't have them fully disabled. '' ?
I currently have a 2014 MBP and my new Hackintosh. I'm having thoughts about selling it both and buy a new 2017 MBP. It's just so god damn expensive
@fannar182 I meant that you can use software that works in Windows to monitor the CPU downclocking while idle or in low use to be sure if your C states are disabled. Well if it's bothering you so much, put the pros and cons on a piece of paper and go for it (or don't).
for me the pros are:
-powerful machine for location recording/editing/mixing
-small and portable (you can record and create your music even when traveling)
-great screen, fast storage, good battery
and the cons for me are:
-less screen space than a dedicated monitor
-performance; desktop cpu vs laptop cpu (unavoidable track freezing)
-discrete high end gpu if you like gaming
-2017 series lack of ports
If you have the option to pay for it in installments, and if it will let you do more work and it pays for itself in reasonable time frame, and if you really need/want it,then go for it. I have a mid 2012 MBP, I just upgraded the storage to ssd and it still works amazing for almost 5 years.
Now back to the original problem... I don't know what else to suggest, would like to test everything myself, but we're about 3000km apart 
However I would really like for you to fix the issue already and keep the hack and save yourself the money
Can you make a video where the guitar is plugged into kemper with the computer turned off, then turned on, with mouse moving/stationary, move around a bit, something like I did?
