noisy inputs

on my ancient presonus firepod preamp, the first two inputs (which are the "mic/instrument" ones) are pretty jacked up. when i run my microkorg through them, there's a level of noise/static that's just not acceptable. is there anything i can do about this, or is it time to start looking at new preamps?

also, i thought i would be able to run it through two of the other six "mic/line" inputs, but i'm getting no signal when i try to record. what's the difference between an instrument input and a line input? sorry for being dumb.

Could be that the cable is faulty. I had a problem this week with a guitar that I thought was broken (loads of static and noise), but it turned out that the cable between the instrument and the amp was damaged.

i wondered about that, i'll give it a shot.

Also, do you hear the noise when you're playing the synth? Or only when you play back what's been recorded?

mmm, it's hard to tell. i'm pretty sure it's both, but it's really obvious when i play it back (i.e. i can hear the noise when the track is unmuted, even when nothing is being played).

OK, well next thing is to try some different cables (to eliminate those as the problem), and if possible borrow a different synth (to remove the MicroKorg as the problem). Even then it could still turn out to be something else - my "fine on recording/static on playback" problem was caused by a MIDI controller keyboard that was usually on but had been switched off by accident.

it was a bad cable. specifically, a bad cable that my cat chewed halfway through. thanks.