Very High-Pitched Mystery "Hiss" on my recordings...

[Matthew Murray]

Hey everybody...

Over the last month or so I've been noticing a mysterious high frequency "hiss" on the drum tracks I've been recording. It's odd because it's not on any one track. I've solo'd out each individual track, and the hiss is not present. It's only through the combination of the tracks that the hiss becomes audible, and only at extremely high listening levels. Still, I fear that as I continue to lay tracks overtop the hiss will become more and more audible, as it seems to become audible whenever three or four tracks come together. It doesn't matter which tracks, which mics/pres, etc.

I can post a sample later today, but I'm posting now because it's been on my mind and I really want to get to the bottom of it. It may be that most people won't notice it, maybe not anyone .. but it's bugging me. For all I know, it could simply be noise floor and part of the natural sound of "silence" -- a sound I'm not used to hearing until now, now that I've upgraded my monitoring gear so significantly.

Any insight would be thrilling as always. Thanks!

[Kiwiburger]

Somebody recently mentioned that some power companies are trialling digital TV or something over their power lines. Apparantly this can induce a hissy noise into audio - maybe your power company is doing that?

Ask them if they are doing this, and express your displeasure if they are. Stupid greedy bastards - the world is polluted enough.

You might need to experiment with a sinewave UPS. The way things are going, studios are going to need faraday cages and run off batteries.

Then again - it might be something simple, like running phantom power on the wrong device. Or a digital clocking issue.

Are you saying you've only noticed it since you've upgraded your monitors? It could just be the natural noise floor of your gear. Maybe you need to upgrade your cables - I find Gotham GC-3 is fantastic for shielding out EMI.

All active circuits have some hiss - you can't remove it all. And then their is acoustic room hiss - brownian motion of air molecules.

It must be a problem if you can hear it on drums though ... there is always gating, but I hate to gate for any other reason than sound design. I don't like having to gate out noise.

[Matthew Murray]

Hey guys,
Thanks for the answers already!!!

We're talking about around 11 tracks total. Tracking through either a Shadow Hills Gama, a Phoenix DRS-2, a Chandler LTD1 or Germanium. Like I said, the hiss is only really audible when it reaches 3-5 simultaneous tracks, and it grows louder as I add more tracks. With one track, it's completely inaudible.

I tend to agree that it could just be natural noise floor and for whatever reason, I'm just noticing it more (probably because it's my own commercial project and I'm an absolute perfectionist when it comes to anything of my own going on sale).

Tracked through an Apogee AD-16x and Symphony. Monitoring through an Avocet into Barefoot Micromain 27's.

All my cabling is Mogami already ... so I'm hoping to god that's good enough. I don't have any power conditioning (except the cheap Furman PL8's I got for easy powering on) ...

Our guitar player couldn't even hear it -- but both our bass player and myself could both make it out whenever a tune were to get quiet. When in mid-strum of a mid to loud part of any song, it's completely obscured and doesn't matter. It's those moments when drums die out and songs get quiet that I'm really frightened of this being an issue!!

[Matthew Murray]

Originally Posted by darkchild

is that bill clinton n ur avatar?

It's his head, at least .... the rest may or may not be my time-wasting photoshop trickery. I'll never tell.

[Kiwiburger]

Bypass that cheap Furman to make sure it isn't the problem. I have read comments that suggest they can, in some circumstances, add noise instead of removing it.

What about your lighting? Any fluroescents or dimmers? Mic's can be susceptible to noise, just like guitars.

[Matthew Murray]

I have some lamps from ikea in there ... I wonder if the bulbs are of the flourescant variety?

Oy .. removing the furmans would be quite the task but I suppose it would be worth it to check. This is the first I've heard of them actually introducing noise ....

No dimmers in the room though.

[pigpen]

Check out the Furman Voltage Regualtor and then run all your PL8's off that one unit. I do not pretend to have the best ears, but I'll be damned if even I could not hear an audible difference of silence. I am in a row of commercial buildings with shitty power so it really helped me alot.
Best of luck....that or of course.....that could be the credit card companies somehow spying on you to somehow make sure you are at last utulizing all that kick ass gear they paid for!!!! (Wait....now I hear it too!!!! )

[Tim Farrant]

You say in your first post it's on the drum tracks - is it only on the drum tracks or does adding bass, vox tracks etc add to the hiss too?

Tim.

[Engine Room]

Sorry to butt in, but I'm the guy that posted the material on the digital 'noise'.

If you're hearing 'hiss', it is NOT what I'm talking about.

The digital signal I speak of has a definite oscilation. tsktikikititsk..tkstikikitsk...etc.


It is clearly not hiss, hum, nor rf interference.

It will freak you out and not go away until you isolate your studio power.

Welcome to the new millenium.

and the age of devices that plug into the wall and provide huge broadband internet and television to boot.

such a love/hate relationship, i agree, but for audio guys....yeck!

This is, of course, my personal experience. Power differs from place to place, and there are many (numerous) discussions on this topic.