Condenser mics and a noisy Pc.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Palomares
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Palomares

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Hi,

I'm trying to do some home recording, and so far my equipment is:

PC, Amd Athlon 1.6, 1 GB Ram, Behringer mixer UB 1002, Se Electronics SE1 A Mic and trying at the moment to get up to speed an Audiophile 2496 I have just installed. Previous sound card, SoundBlaster live.

Software: Cubase SX, Windows XP.

Have tried to do some recording with my previous soundcard, SoundBlaster live, and found that the recordings were picking up noise from fans inside the PC, mostly the fan from the power supply, the one from the processor and the noise coming from the hard drive is minimum in comparison.

To be honest find this quite annoying! as you I can hear it quite a bit in the recording.

Have thought of changing the power supply for a more silent one, could anybody advise if they have come across this, and have replaced the power supply? If so any suggestions?? The one I have says its a Low level noise one, 300 watts max and even though is very noisy, any suggestions???

Also have thought of soundproofing the PC some how, maybe putting it inside a cupboard, or designing a soundproof box.

Other ideas I have come across is going into another room and recording from there! but the problem is that you can't see the monitor and control what is going on.

Anyway, any suggestions? Would be very helpful, like soundproof material, silent power supplies, or any suggestions! are welcome!!

Cheers!!
Palomares!!
 
I got the same problem. I stuff pillows around the CPU and while it helps a lot I can't quite get the room noise down to nuthin. I one case I captured a lot of disk writes at the tail end of a track, only it took me a while to realize it because I couldn't tell the difference between real-time disk activity and recorded disk activity.
 
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That's what's held me back from considering pc recording.

I wonder if you can wire up all the fans to one external switch, they're probably all 12volt dc, but you'd have to be carefull how long they'd be off for or you'll fry it. If you have a giant cpu heatsink, then maybe you'd be ok for a few minutes. Or record cold, after pc was off for a while w/out fans. But then there's the hdd anyway. People must be having this problem solved somehow....
 
oh hell yeah junplugged...people have been recording to PC forever. You just either need to isolate the PC either in a case or in another room (why do you think big studios have a separate machine room) or get extrememly quiet fans. It's possible, you just have to research it all.
 
ok

what i'dlike to do it put some Water cooling in my pc,
and build a wooden case for it, like a small closet that can go open in the front

i spent lots of time investing, and damn...i'm not a computer nerd, so it takes a LONG time to find out how i'll do it


building a case is simple, just need some wood,
but then, the PC may not get too hot, so i'll have to make sure to put some extra ventilation in it, which makes nooize....

so yeah, watercooling, but i heard that this can make a lill noize too,
 
is it possible to just take the case off of the pc alltogether?

or maybe just one side at least? haha.
 
Look at sites like:

http://www.endpcnoise.com/
http://www.quietpc.com/

About every idea is covered here by people absolutely obsessed with wanting a computer that makes absolutely no noise whatsoever.

The primary noise culprits are fans (power supply fans are typically louder than cpu fans), hard disk drives, and case integrity. A few companies make quiet fans, Seagate drives are nice and quiet, and you can get insulation for your pc's interior as well as special boxes to enclose it.

I see a lot of high-powered cpu's mentioned in this forum. These require more cooling which increases noise. You don't have to have the latest 4Ghz cpu for recording. I use a 2.4 P4 Celeron in a Shuttle XPC that works fine and stays very quiet.

You could also extend your mouse, keyboard, and monitor cables so your pc could reside in another room or closet.

For now, I record vocals in a closet and all else goes direct.
 
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