Topic: Achieving no hum / noise from guitar input
Hello All,
I have an RME UFX II and absolutely love it. I am new to RME and audio engineering in general. Currently, my PRS Custom 24-08 guitar is plugged into Mic/Line 10 (INSTR enabled) via an unbalanced cable. My Main output is phones 9/10 and I listen on passive Beyer Dynamics DT 1990 headphones. I have loopback enabled on hardware outputs AN 7 and AN 8. This is so I can quickly change snapshots and hear / assign different guitar effects through my DAW. In one snapshot I have the hardware gain turned up to 25.0 (and lots of overdrive though S-Gear via Reaper) and there is a small high pitch hum that gets amplified. If listening through RME Total mix on hardware input Mic/Line 10, the hum is barely there (however it is very noticeable if you turn the gain up to 35.0+).
I am trying to figure out if I can solve this issue with software and/or hardware. I appreciate the added gain for legato playing but want a clean gain / signal. Will a DI box fix an issue like this (example: buying a LEHLE P-SPLIT III?), or can RME Total Mix FX correct this (I have muted the constant noise through DSP e.g. essentially a noise gate but this seems like a band-aid)? Maybe DSP compression? Note: In Reaper, I have master and channel volume sliders at 0db and guitar volume turned all the way up.
Appreciate any and all help / tips! Thank you!