briang-telkomsa-net
At first it was difficult...then it became easier..then the hissing started?
The first few recordings seemed to have minimal "background" noise, if any. I went back and listened.
TokyoPOP also noted on my "Home Recording Project" thread that he had a similar problem and I replied that I lived in a relatively quite area etc (gloating in fact) and now karma has got me!
Any suggestions as to what I, and Tokyo, could look at for the cause.
Is it the cabling, has my mic been damaged perhaps, I don't recall changing any settings on my audio interface (Allen&Heath ZX), why would things seem to deteriorate over time?
ezietsman
There's always hiss. The way to make it unheard is to make everything else much louder (increase your signal to noise ratio) i.e. If you record at pretty low volume then at some point when you normalise your track or add compression, everything gets amplified, including that background hiss. The first thing to do to avoid hearing that is to make sure your input signals are as high as they can be without clipping, and they must be high without you increasing gain (amplification) on a mic or interface or otherwise, your amp must be louder or the mic must be closer to the guitar/speaker whatever. Some mics need a good dose of volume to make good recordings with (SM57/58/ Audix i5). I found I need to turn the amp up a good bit in order for the signal to be relatively large without needing lots of gain on the interface.
This assumes your equipment is not faulty. Ground loops can cause hum and hiss, make sure everything is plugged into the same adapter, so they can all share a common ground connection (This is a good idea anyway).
What post processing do you do? Have you changed anything there?
People in the know, feel free to chip in as this is something we all have trouble with from time to time.
ezietsman
Oh you have a condenser mic. Yes, those are very sensitive aren't they? My guess is still that you have the gain somewhere set too high, so the hiss is being amplified. This hiss is inherent in all electronic equipment unless you cool them. Try making a recording with your acoustic placed right next to that mic, like maybe 30cm - 50cm away or so. As close as you can without danger of hitting the mic. My guess is that you will need less amplification later in order to make your track have a reasonable volume at playback time and with it less audible hiss.
An easy enough experiment I think.
briang-telkomsa-net
Thanks for your suggestions/observations ez-
Signal to noise ratio may just be the thing - Gain on my audio interface is high while the channel level setting is low, so will fiddle around with these and see if it makes a difference and read up on gain staging perhaps
Also the cooling - could the audio interface and laptop be getting too hot?
Hopefully nothing faulty with equipment - it does not seem like it
Some further observations
I am recording acoustic guitar with no amplification through a Samson at very close range about 30cm - so as to get as much direct sound as possible (recording in a bedroom is not ideal I know) - check
Everything is plugged into the same adaptor - check
The hiss is there before any post processing (EQ, compression, reverb, subtraction etc) and as you noted these just exacerbate (did I just say exacerbate ! ???) the problem - check
Visashi
Sounds like high gain..
babbalute
Also keep power supplies away from gear as much as possible. Some record on a notebook and the nearness of its power supply to the mixer, interface or other not shielded equipment can cause any type of noise.
morph
Have you tried adding a filter using an EQ into the DAW to identify it and block the hiss? Low Pass or notch
briang-telkomsa-net
Thanks for all the useful input everyone - will be checking all of these out!
I omitted to mention that I am fingerpicking parts of the song so my gain staging must have been messed up!
Did a quick test last night changing the gain and output of the recording channel around and things seemed to be better at least.
Greg, excuse my ignorance, how would one place a filter on the incoming signal to a DAW?
morph
For Reaper use the left pane on the screen
1. Add two tracks (right click insert new track) and name them track 1 and track 2
2. First track set your input to your source as you normally do for recording
3. click on the FX button and add VST ReaEQ for example (this has a nice display that will show you the frequency range you are receiving).
4. Click on the I/O button on Track 1 and a pop up window appears
5. Unclick Master/Parent Send. That will stop it sending the sound to your speakers
6. Click on sends, and select Track 2. This send it to track 2
7. Click on the I/O button on Track 2. You will see it has track 1 set as the Receive.
8. This is the important step: on Track 2, click on the INOUT button just right of the input selection and select Record Output, Mono or Stereo, latency compensated depending on whether you are recording mono or stereo. This tells it to record from the output bus that track 1 is sending.
9. ARM track 2 for recording by pressing the red button on track 2.
10. Record away
Alternatively take any of your current recordings that have the hiss, set the EQ on that track and play around with it until you are happy that your filter is blocking the noise, then add the track 2 and start from step 4. ARM track 2 for recording, Click on the Solo (S) for track 1 so it is the only one playing, rewind and when you press the record button at the bottom it will record the cleaned recording onto the new track
One thing I read a while back is once you remove something from the source it is gone forever you cannot roll back. The suggestions are to record the source unaltered, and add the filters to the track to solve the problem. This way you can fine tune or change the filter later. The same is true when you record, try and make sure it is clean, no reverb, compressors etc. you can always add the effects in using VSTs.
Once you render the song to an MP3 the result will be clean
briang-telkomsa-net
Greg Perkins wrote:
For Reaper use the left pane on the screen
1. Add two tracks (right click insert new track) and name them track 1 and track 2
2. .........
10. Record away
Alternatively .........The same is true when you record, try and make sure it is clean, no reverb, compressors etc. you can always add the effects in using VSTs.
Once you render the song to an MP3 the result will be clean
Thanks for this very detailed explanation Greg - will give it a go. 8)
