RNLA/RNC And Low Level Noise

BigEZ

The Devil Has Blue Eyes
Hi all,

I need a compressor that can also work as an Expander/Gate. I have a home studio that unfortunately has some background noise that I need to get rid of when recording vocals and acoustic guitar. I was hoping to get both in one box and trying to stay under $300.

Can the RNLA or RNC do this? If not, I am open to other suggestions.

Thanks,

ROK
 
No compressor will solve your problem. A gate might help some but it's doubtful that the processing would be totally transparent. Are you talking about environmental or system noise?
 
It's all environmental noise like the a/c or furnace. I was hoping to get a compressor and gate in the same box but anything I could find seems to get pretty bad reviews (i.e. Berringer or Alesis products) or is way out of my price range.
 
if you can't shut the a/c or furnace off while working with open mics, your best bet might be to do the best you can with mic placement on the way in and then use a noise reduction plug in or program on the way out.
 
if you can't shut the a/c or furnace off while working with open mics, your best bet might be to do the best you can with mic placement on the way in and then use a noise reduction plug in or program on the way out.



This is your best bet by far!
 
It's also my family, cats and dogs moving around on the floor above me. Unfortunately I don't have the space to building a soundproof room. Thanks for your help Rick.
 
One more thing I'd like to ask you guys...

I'm reading a book called Guerrilla Home Recording and they suggest using an Expander in the initial signal chain to maximize dynamic range and increase the sound floor but would also remove a lot of this low level noise. Is this not the case?
 
I'm reading a book called Guerrilla Home Recording and they suggest using an Expander in the initial signal chain to maximize dynamic range and increase the sound floor but would also remove a lot of this low level noise. Is this not the case?
I don't know the book or anything about the people who wrote it. They may (and probably do) know more than I do, so you can weigh our opinions appropriately.

Using an expander, in general, when tracking doesn't seem like a great idea. Using a noise gate (which is really nothing but an expander that's set in particular way) makes sense in particular situations, but not in others.

In expander would increase the dyanmic range of the signal you feed into your converter. What I'm not understanding is why you'd want to do that (absent some special situation). The dynamic range of your converters and entire recording and replay system is somewhat limited, and isn't going to change as a result of using an expander. To use a possibly odd metaphor: what you're doing with an expander is making the thing you're trying to put into a box bigger without changing the size of the box you're trying to put it in.

Coming at it another way: it would lower the average signal, compared to the peaks. The peaks are still going to be at about the same level (you can't make them higher). As a result, you're just making the level and resolution of most of what you're recording lower, and closer to the noise floor.
 
Thx sj. So is there anything you would recommend in the initial signal chain to eliminate the household background noise? Or do you also feel that it's better to address this with a plug-in once the tracks are down?
 
Well ... since others already did, I'll also note the obvious solution is to cut down the household background noise. But, of course, that's (also obviously) not much help if you can't.

What a noise gate (either a hardware one or a software plug-in) does is really just to mute the channel when the signal is below some level. When you're actually singing, it doesn't do anything to the noise: it's still there, just "behind" the sound of the singing, so not very obvious. Depending how you set up the gate, it will mute the noise between phrases, or between words or syllables. You can do that with a software plug-in after the track is already down, and it will be (a) more adjustable, (b) more reversible and (c) probably more accurate, in terms of not cutting off the tails of words and the like. Of course, if you want to be laborious about it, you can also do it by editing the track by hand (don't do that ... it's fine for muting a track between verses, but between syllables?).

Whether there's a noise-reduction plug-in that can reduce the noise that's under the vocal (rather than just between syllables), I don't know. It's technically doable in fairly obvious ways when the noise is something regular and periodic, like a hum. If it's dogs walking around, probably not so much, except by doing things that may have a noticeable effect on the signal you're trying to preserve.

If it were me, I'd probably:
- Use a relatively directional cardiod mic (probably obvious).
- Work the mic close.
- Maybe try double-tracking the vocal. I like to do that with my own voice anyway, but whether it's a good idea depends on a lot of other things. For good/highly expressive singers, it may not be a great idea. For singers who are shaky in terms of pitch and tone, it might be beneficial for non-noise-related reasons).
- Run a plug-in that works like a noise gate on the signal after it's recorded, and spend as much time as is warranted to feel around to get it to work well.
- Possibly run a "noise-reduction" or "noise-cancelling" plug-in and see if it helps. It won't get dogs (or probably the "whoosh" of air ducts, other than my cutting all high frequencies), but if there were the hum of a furnace motor, it might be helpful.
- Not get too obsessed about making a pristine recording. After all, it's not a string quartet. Uhm ... it's not a string quartet, is it?
 
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The best way to deal with a noisy environment is to drop the condenser Mic in favor of a dynamic...
 
I hate to say the obvious but this is the reason studios spend so much on sound proofing and acoustic treatment. The only way to get a low noise is to have a low noise environment. No amount of gating, compression, mic choice, etc is going to get rid of the noise.

Why don't you use your studio to record demos and when you have the song how you want and can play it in your sleep, pop into a real studio and record the finished product?

Alan.
 
your DAW should have a good transparent gate built in. Just record with the noise (if all else fails) and use the gate to cut out the silent parts.
 
Gates do not remove noise, gates only silence perts of the recording where you don't want the material you have recorded, I.E. between lines of a vocal track. The gate has to open to let you hear the recorded parts you want, and the noise is right there in the background.

The only way that you can get a quiet recording is to record in a quiet place.

Alan.
 
If you ask me... (which nobody has), gates are strictly for live sound. And a compressor would compound the problem by squashing the dynamic range and actually making the background noise perceivably louder
 
Gates do not remove noise, gates only silence perts of the recording where you don't want the material you have recorded, I.E. between lines of a vocal track. The gate has to open to let you hear the recorded parts you want, and the noise is right there in the background.

The only way that you can get a quiet recording is to record in a quiet place.

Alan.

Yeah of course. The signal to noise ratio is much lower when there is no signal (like in the silent parts). During the not silent parts, sometimes a lot of the noise isn't noticed so much because the signal is higher. So, the gate doesn't remove noise, it just silences the parts that are supposed to be silent so there is not a lot of noise building up.

Otherwise you could just cut out the silent parts too, which is probably the best method.
 
The best way to deal with a noisy environment is to drop the condenser Mic in favor of a dynamic...

Best answer.

OP, we don't know what it is you want to record. Without more information, I think your best bet is to address the problem as close to the source as possible. Work out a time with the family when they'll allow you to record and kennel the dog.

How much noise can a cat make? Does your cat wear wood clogs or something?
 
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