yup.

no improvement with the mixer.

dramatic improvement with the soundblaster.

so, if it's humming, the soundblaster is getting around it. good enough...

...but i think it's asio. let's see if i can find evidence of that...

i know i can get around it by compressing the hell out of it because i did it once before, which is fine for finger parts, but i need a pick attack for this and don't want to compress it out.

the only other thing i can think of is that the active pickups are too loud. maybe if i try recording at a very, very low volume.

actually, i have a switch on the pod to try for that, too.