Damn Humming!!!

B

Ben P Music

New member
okay, so i have a studio in my basement, and in the basement there is just a little bit of backround noise, but that noise needs to go away, i have a well treated room and i know that there has to be something i can add to my rack that will make it go away, i have a 3630 gate but all it does is mute the signal until i talk or sing and then the backround noise is still there and even more noticable comming out of the complete quiet, so please, someone help me remove the damn humming!
 
Well what is humming? Your computer? A fan?

Try and isolate the mic from the humming or isolate the humming from the mic. Move to the other side of the room as far as the cable will take you, hang a blanket behind the microphone. Turn off the fan? There are expensive noise removing programs but I dont think any free or cheap ones. Plus they detract the quality of the sound by reducing the noisy parts of the recording which are valuable to the recordings natural content. Elaborate and maybe we can help more.

and what do you mean by well treated?

Eric
 
the humming is mainly comming from the computer and a refrigerator like 20 feet away that i cant turn off. and sadly the computer is wired into everything and cant be moved, also the room that is treated for the microphone is the same room for the computer... any new advice?
 
Well like I said, you can take like a few moving blankets or thick comforters and build a little shield around the mic. This should improve your signal to noise ratio. Like I said, if your mic is directional, point it away from the noise. If there is noise coming from both sides, record on which side is less noisy. Maybe you could cover the fridge section off with a few absorbent materials and make due with that.

You can get a mic cable that's long enough and just record in another room. Dynamic mic's tend to be less sensitive to room noise. Additionally a directional dynamic microphone might be even better, then you can wear headphones and monitor the sounds and find a place with less room noise.

Eliminating the room noise in some way is always a better option than trying to "fix it in the mix".

Good Luck, Eric
 
Wait, what?

There isn't a rack mounted device that is going to silence your computer and refrigerator. You can sort of remove it from your track, but not without pretty much destroying the quality of the original. Not a good option for critical recordings.

You could build a silent computer, and you can buy a quieter refrigerator - or find a new home for it.

Depending on what you're recording, you could use a cardioid or hyper cardioid dynamic mic and cut way down on ambient sound issues. Put the noise in the null portion of the pattern.

So I guess the answer is "it depends". How important is it to you, what do you want to do, and how much money do you have to spend?
 
You say you can't turn off the fridge. Is it hardwired to the wall? Or is there some other reason you can't pull the plug on it while using the mic.
The fridge will remain plenty cold for a while. Just remember to turn it back on again.

C.
 
The fridge...unplug it while recording (if you can).

The computer...the noise is probably coming from the fan or the cd/dvd drive. You can install a quieter fan in your computer and/or disable the drive while you record (i've never tried it, but it should work).

What kind of mic are you using? dynamic, condenser, ribbon?
 
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