Noise, noise, hated noise

[JonesH]

I really don't like noise. I've made some recordings the last year with good equipment (DPA mics, Milennia pre:s, Sounddevices recorders or Pro Tools systems) and I feel that my recordings are too noisy.

- What is, in your experience, the prime source of noise?
- How do you go about eliminating it?

Thank you.

[JEGG]

Noise sources:
1. Ambient unwanted sounds.

Solution: Move mics, use different pattern mics, possibly reduce ambient noise by EQ, etc.

2. Electrical noise: Noise generated by devices in your recording chain, mics, pre's, recorders, etc. Also EMI and RF through cables/hardware. Benign noise made worse by bad gain structure.

Solutions:
Use different hardware, mics, etc.
Use good quality shielded cable.
Understand gain structure.

[rufus13]

For a performance of somewhat quiet music, the venue and the audience set the noise floor. The air conditioning fans will come on during the performance, unless you or your trusted assistant control them. Someone near your microphones will be ever-so-slowly unwrapping a cellophane-wrapped cough drop during the silent parts. Doors clunk shut. Children and imbeciles talk, then are shusshed. Someone else will have XDR-TB with excruciating lung rippers and sputum sprays. 60 ton Diesel trucks will accelerate up an expansion-strip-covered ramp only 40 feet from the performer. Vermin will be heard scratching in air conditioning ducts, until they blow chilled vermin fur and dust. This is at a "good show" where no tickets are discounted or given free to the kulcha-wanting publik. Good microphones and clean electronics record all of it accurately.

More budget will let you rent a better building with less infestation, and eliminate the audience.
In LA, you can rent dressed dummies to occupy the seats for the reflection improvement audiences provide.

Best wishes.

[boojum]

Too true. The venues on the coast are the same.

[loujudson]

Try using worse montioring? Cheap headphones, lousy speakers, and pretend the clients don't notice. They probably don;t anyway, being awed by the miracle of electrical recording.

Then smash it to death in mastering and it will be part of the music.

All facetious joking, really. WE seem to care more than the audience and clients...

But 30 years with anaolog tape and casettes have made me appreciate it all...

L

[Shadow_7]

Prior to getting higher end gear (not to imply high end gear) the gear itself contributed mostly towards the noise. If you didn't ride the gain to get maximum recording levels, and thus lowering the noise floor. You had to amplify it in post and that raised the noise floor. Regardless of either input, the noise level was fairly high. 10% + depending on the gear.

Not that I have decent gear, I can set the gains at a level that makes the loudest source noise ride about 50% of the gears capabilities. And still get decent results after amplification in post. Things are better if I set gain to a level better suited(higher) to the venue/group. But I can live with good enough on higher end gear.

Not that having better gear is a cure for all evils. Given that I record outside most of the time. That flag pole with the cables bouncing on the pole in the wind makes quite a racket. Those trucks speeding away nearby get noticed on the recordings. And who evers running that drill/saw down the street is making entirely too much noise. Despite the 100+dB brass band I'm recording 20 yards away. As I invision another thread with noise sources that windscreens do NOT help with.

[springer]

I feel your pain...
I record often in a free noon concert situation that breeds lunchbag and other noises from the crowd at sometimes very soft musical events.
I have adopted closer mic placements and techniques like Mid/Side have really helped to isolate the music from the noise. But it will always be there. To me, it is my job to figure out how to narrow the focus of the recording in on the music. Sometimes that means compromising ideals.

[DCtoDaylight]

This reminds me of the old joke about the difference between a music lover and an audiophile: if you play an old 78 of Caruso or Bessie Smith or Jelly Roll Morton, the music lover will be grooving on the performance and the audiophile will be futzing with the EQ and grumbling about all the surface noise.

I don't mean to say that keeping noise out of our recordings isn't important - it is, totally. But I think loujudson is exactly right - that we hear the hiss and rumble and coughing and all a lot more than our clients and audiences do. We tend to zoom on it a little obsessively, in part because we have to in order to keep things as pristine as possible and in part because we have equipment and (hopefully) ears that are a bit better than the end users.

The big thing to NOT do is call clients' attention to things they wouldn't have noticed. If you alert them to the truck passing at the start of the second movement, that is only audible when you crank the volume and focus on hearing it, it can wreck their whole experience of an otherwise-great recording!

[John Brook]

but I may be wrong. A while back, I found that all of a sudden, I had more noise in my recordings and then I noticed that someone (not a trusted assistant) had reset the mics. Check the info that comes with them and set them for the lowest noise setting. Your equipment should give you very quiet recordings.

That said, I've noticed that if I set gains during a dress rehearsal, then come back and check equipment whlie the house is still empty and quiet, ambient noise is roughly 60 - 65 db below my peak or 0 db setting. Then, when the audience comes in, the background noise jumps to -45 to -50 db below 0 db.

[Shadow_7]

Any tips for dealing with noises like these?

http://home.earthlink.net/~shadow_7/...r1000noise.mp3

Recorded out my back door. A stereo pair of Avenson STO-2's through a Korg MR-1000 running on NiMH batteries. Slapping my belly about 1 meter from the mics for a reference sound. When passing the mics near the electrical meter you hear the interference. Solution obviously is not to do that. But there's also a lot of wind noise. Even though I've got WindTech 2114's on the tips with Rycote Lavalier wind jammers on top of them. Just got them today.

Now obviously without the windscreens it's MUCH worse. And there was a fairly strong breeze when I was recording. Which is typical for these parts. Any tips for 86'ing the wind noise? Preferably free options. Like something built into Audacity. Perhaps EQ-ing it out. I've sort of maxed out my lavalier sized windscreen options. Which would be better if I was in a gym or something with A/C generated wind. Or in winds less than 10mph. But outdoors.... In these parts.....

[loujudson]

Only way to keep the wind out is to keep the wind out. In 40 years of radio and recording, i have never seen a way to remove it after it has been recorded.. Certianly no magic plug in, except maybe Celemony - if you want to go in second by second... but it's best to not recordi it!

Get a better windjammer, different mics, close to the subject. You slapping your belly the music you need? No a very good reference to whatever you may be recording. The birds sound nice, the buzz not.

L

[sonicdefault]

Originally Posted by rufus13

For a performance of somewhat quiet music, the venue and the audience set the noise floor. The air conditioning fans will come on during the performance, unless you or your trusted assistant control them. Someone near your microphones will be ever-so-slowly unwrapping a cellophane-wrapped cough drop during the silent parts. Doors clunk shut. Children and imbeciles talk, then are shusshed. Someone else will have XDR-TB with excruciating lung rippers and sputum sprays. 60 ton Diesel trucks will accelerate up an expansion-strip-covered ramp only 40 feet from the performer. Vermin will be heard scratching in air conditioning ducts, until they blow chilled vermin fur and dust. This is at a "good show" where no tickets are discounted or given free to the kulcha-wanting publik. Good microphones and clean electronics record all of it accurately.

...

A true poet...


-SD

[sonicdefault]

Originally Posted by JonesH

I really don't like noise. I've made some recordings the last year with good equipment (DPA mics, Milennia pre:s, Sounddevices recorders or Pro Tools systems) and I feel that my recordings are too noisy.

- What is, in your experience, the prime source of noise?
- How do you go about eliminating it?

Thank you.

What type of music were you recording? Also, how would you describe the noise you're hearing? (ie. ambient? gear self-noise, etc.)


-SD

[Samc]

Originally Posted by JonesH

- What is, in your experience, the prime source of noise?
- How do you go about eliminating it?

Your questions are a little too broad to be covered pointedly. What kind of noise do yo have on your recordings and ow loud is it compared to the program material?

Although you may be able to reduce it; Technically speaking you cannot "eliminate" noise.

[Shadow_7]

Originally Posted by loujudson

Only way to keep the wind out is to keep the wind out. In 40 years of radio and recording, i have never seen a way to remove it after it has been recorded.. Certianly no magic plug in, except maybe Celemony - if you want to go in second by second... but it's best to not recordi it!

Get a better windjammer, different mics, close to the subject. You slapping your belly the music you need? No a very good reference to whatever you may be recording. The birds sound nice, the buzz not.

L

The belly slapping was just to give some reference that could be reproduced by others. Who may or may not run the experiment themselves. Birds are nice, but there's no way to tell if they're two inches or two miles away. Baring other reference sounds like a truck, door, phone, .....

So how does one NOT record wind noise? Do I need to put my lavalier windjammers inside a bigger windjammer? Do I need to wrap them in an impermeable membrane? Like latex, or cellophane? Build up some sort of structure like a brick wall? Record from inside a fish bowl? As it is the windscreens are some 400+% the size of the business end of the mics. Not to imply bigger than a golf ball. See new avatar...

[loujudson]

. Bellies are a nature sound? I don't see avatars, too distracting, so I have them turned off.

Choose your mic for the use, and make windscreens - do you have fake fur over your windjammer? Fake fur does wonders, for some reason the fur quiets the wind noise.

I can show you how to make windscreens for lavs from fake fur and wire strainers. I need to ask a friend where those pictures are, so more later.

L

[Shadow_7]

http://home.earthlink.net/~shadow_7/avatar100.jpg

The Rycote Lavalier WindJammers are of the fur variety. The WindTech 2114's are of the foam variety. Both are better than the Radio Shack Tie Clip windscreens I was using. But none of them are good enough to kill all wind noise. At least in > 20mph conditions.

[sonare]

This thread seems to be careening out of control in the direction of wind noise, although the poster did not mention it. In fact he didn't say WHAT kind of noise he was hearing.

I agree that once you have recorded the sound of a diaphragm bottoming out you are hosed, but for steady-state HVAC noise either Cedar, No-noise, or Noisefree does an amazing job. For transients there is eayNOVA, plus Sequoia now includes such software. Not cheap, but you get what you pay for.

The more serious the noise (and its amplitude) the more likely that the removal will have some sonic side effects, but there is no free lunch.

Rich

[loujudson]

Originally Posted by Shadow_7

http://home.earthlink.net/~shadow_7/avatar100.jpg

The Rycote Lavalier WindJammers are of the fur variety. The WindTech 2114's are of the foam variety. Both are better than the Radio Shack Tie Clip windscreens I was using. But none of them are good enough to kill all wind noise. At least in > 20mph conditions.

Try this, with thanks to my good friend Dan Dugan. I made my own and the work very very well:

http://www.dandugan.com/downloads/Da...der_mounts.pdf

You don't have to have them on your shoulders, though that work marvelously for ambient recordings.

Lou

[Corran]

Just interjecting something I discovered...using plugins for noise reduction, I found that using several instances of the plugin on each individual track, rather than just the master, did a much better and more natural job at reducing noise. However depending on the plugin it could be very CPU intensive, or alternatively take a LONG time to mixdown (I did this on a 7-track, 2+ hour orchestra recording and the "mixdown" was going to take something like 7 hours! I went and used a couple less instances...).