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Chris Jahn

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I recorded a chord organ yesterday, if your not familiar, its a cheap plastic air powred organ that sounds like an acordian meets a harmonica.

My problem is that the fan on the thing is loud as hell. now in the particular song i think its fine, it works as kind of an ambient rumble, almost like drones on bagpipes.

BUT.....in the future if i didnt want that, what sort of filters, or eq' ing, or mic techniques or whatever can get rid of that wind tunnel rumble. I did part of the song with stereo dynamics right over the "speaker" on top (the fan is underneath. that section was the "chords" like the buttons on an acordian. the other parts the singal note i did with a condensor, much further away. both sound good, but the noise is ever present.
 
I guess that was an attempt at humor, but its not that simple, the fan is not "fixable" it is what it is, its the nature of the instrument, its about two notches up from a childrens toy pinano. I know there are ways to fix ambient noise, so id like some constructive help!
 
Chris Jahn said:
I guess that was an attempt at humor, !
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Not really, I know a few chord organ freaks who have made their boxes a fair amount quieter with some tinkering. The real point is always always try to treat problems as close to the source as possible.

Anyway, some cutting is likely to help, in the range of the noise. Maybe even a simple high pass filter will be useful. Hopefully you can get the noise down to an acceptable level. Some gentle expansion may help during times when no notes are being played. For close-micing, try to keep the mics out of the direct airflow as much as possible. Others may have more advice.
 
thanks, i just had a DUH moment after waht you said, the fan did cause a lot of noise, but i didnt really think about the fact that the "speaker" isnt a speaker at all, or at least not in the traditional sense. The damn thing is blowing air straight into the mic at close range, DOH. its like somone heavy breathing into a phone. this could really be the BIG problem, but ill try some filtering etc...

thanks for the reply
 
From what I've gathered, some of these guys tinker a lot, and go pretty far, which may or may not appeal to you. Some of them are a little out there. :cool: Apparently these things are serious business to some people!!

I had one when I was a kid, and never saw one again until last summer, they have made a resurgence. I've probably seen at leasy five since then at live shows where I've been doing sound, really popular with emo and some electronica guys.

They have done things like make sure the shaft of the fan is straight and that it is fairly well balanced. One guy put bushings or some kind of rubber on the motor mounts. These things were for mechanical noise. If you can, it may help to remove the grille over the exit hole, air whooshes as it goes past those plastic bars. On some you can't since it's part of the cover. You may be able to take the cover off and mic the reeds or pipe directly, unless the small exit hole provides some needed air resistance for the thing to work right.
 
I'm not familiar with the instrument, but from reading the posts, I would put a pop filter between the mic and the instrument. Also, a HPF will eliminate a lot of the wind rumble.
 
Since forced air pushed form a motor generates you sound. Take the fan out of the organ, feed air thru a tube to the organ? I would think this would work still. It would give you some distance between the motor and the organ.


YOu might also look at some of the PC computer fans as a possible replacemant..The pride themselves on how quietly they perform.
 
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