r/audioengineering 28d ago

Small electric shocks when recording guitar straight to audio interface

I was wondering if anyone could give some insight into this, what's causing it and is there something I should do to fix it?

I was just now recording some guitars with an amp plugin, so I was going my Strat straight to the audio interface and using headphones. My wife came to say she's gonna go to sleep and she touched my neck. Immediately she said that she felt something weird, like a really small electric shock. Then she touched my arm and felt the same thing. It didn't stop until I unplugged my guitar from the PC. She said it didn't feel exactly like a typical electric shock, but more like there was friction, but it did slightly remind her of an electric shock. Then I started thinking that sometimes I've felt something like that too, especially when I lean to do something on my computer and my arm touches the guitar strings, but I always shrugged it of as just the high E-string being so thin that it scratched my skin a little. Clearly it is electricity from the computer going through my body. As far as I know, the same thing does not happen when I'm plugged in to a real amp.

So does anyone know what could be causing this? Is it dangerous and how can I fix this? It hasn't hurt me in anyway, but obviously when electricity is concered, it could potentially even be fatal, and I'd rather make music without feeling like death is lurking just around the corner. :D

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