Popping when idle

Pmruss

Greetings Peter, ST3 is performing great and the band loves it. I have it set to disable screen lock. When we break for more than a couple minutes and ST3 is idle it pops into the PA system pretty loudly. I am routing all tracks to main except click track 6 to Aux 3. The sound guy has to mute these channels during breaks to stop this. Hoping there is a better solution.

Pmruss

By the way. This is an iPad Air 5th gen using a converter to 1/8 headphone jack

jaytrax

Most likely a power supply interference when idle

If you have a digital desk with a gate
Set it to -60db and turn the gate on

peter

I often have the iPad idling when developing and I don't hear any pops. Does it also happen if not connected to a pa system just on the iPad loudspeakers or headphones?

Pmruss

Good question. I does not pop when on iPad speaker or headphones. I wonder what is causing this when connected to PA.

Damir

Pmruss do you have power connected to your iPad at the time when it’s popping if so try unplugging the power lead to it and see if it disappears, just a thought as I have had noise issues with this and that’s why I prefer to run on battery only when hooked up to PA.

Pmruss

Hi Damir, thanks for your help. I am running on battery with no power attached. There is only the one mini u connector on this iPad Air. I use an adaptor to convert it to a standard earphone jack and plug into a dual cable that runs to 2 separate channels on my mixer. Left is backing tracks and right is click track. In ST3 I am set to main and aux 3.

Damir

Pmruss I think signalProducer might be on the right track , is there a chance you can try a different digital to analog converter and see if the pops go away in idle mode, I use a designated headphone Jack on my older iPad and it’s for a number of reasons I don’t want to upgrade , this is one of them unreliable tack on devices that hang on the end of iPad really piss me off , I have had no issues with the old devices but I get very nervous when I use my new iPhone with a shitty tack on converter to give me a headphone out, I’ve bitched to Apple many times but they don’t care about real needs people they only want money from the people that don’t really use their devices for meaningful purposes , that’s life.
Good luck
Cheers Damir

SignalProducer

Lightning to 3.5mm adapters (like all DACs) require a certain amount of power to operate, which the iPad can provide. But when they are not in use (idle for a few minutes), iPad turns them off to conserve battery power. Some DACs are noisy and can make an audible noise while doing so.

peter

If the lightning adapter is causing it, you could try to disable the option Audio Settings > Pause in Background. That way ST3 will keep the audio engine running even when in background. Maybe iOS will then not stop the lightning adapter. The downside is of course that ST3 will drain your battery that way even when not used. You will then have to manually terminate the app in the task switcher.