Headphone and hard disc leakage

  • Thread starter Thread starter Wide Awake
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Wide Awake

Wide Awake

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I'm about to buy a condenser mic for recording acoustic guitar and hand percussion and I am wondering if the mic will pick up the noise from my Fostex VF16...it's a little noisy. Also, will it pick up the sound coming from my headphones....I haven't purchased a good pair so feel free to suggest a good pair for cueing.
 
ok wide awake , i know about this cos i was trying it yesterday. I have a rode NT1 , great mic , i use it for vocals , accoustic guit. and ive even miked bongos with it and it sounds great .. Now the other day i decided to try recording some accoustic guitar in the control room (just messing around by myself).. i always thought the cpu was a little noisy for the control room(i like dead silence when mixing) but didnt realise how noisy it was till i put the rode in there . It picked up the cpu quite badly , i presume this is what your worried about (pretend the cpu is your fostek). Well i spose my answer is yes it will pick it up , but the rode is a very sensitive mic , yet it is such a clear and precise mic too. Just buy a nice long mic lead and maybe place the mic in a different room. About the cans , well i have had that problem , even using a great set of akg's but its usually just cos the vocalist wants the mix so loud that my grandmother down the road is asking me to turn it down.. So i just dropped the cue mix a little and things havent been better.. Definetly check out the rode mics , also the akg mics and phones ... good luck wide
spider
 
Spider is right about a condenser picking up every little noise. A good condenser should faithfully reproduce the sound of the room and what you are recording, so if the room is very noisy you'll definitely here it. Check out the Sony MDR-7504 headphones, around $90US. Do a search of the BBS for other models that are recommended. Sony models usually win the popular vote in the threads I've seen here. Get a good pair of headphones, and don't monitor at extreme levels and the headphone tracks shouldn't be picked up by the mic enough to matter.
 
headphones

Recording magazine has a great article on this very
issue this month. Headphone brands and models are also rated for leakage. S0NY won the test...

Chuck
 
I did read that article on headphones in Recording magazine and it states that the Sony 7506's are kind of an industry standard, not unlike the Yamaha NS-10 monitors...flat response, not too much of a hyped bass. I am going to find a way to isolate the hard disc....maybe build a baffle. I'll have my mic next week and I should know how everything sounds. My guitar sounds amazing in the entry way of my house....like a natural reverb with lots of reflections.
 
Even if the vocal mic picked up headphone noise, most of the time it's not heard when you mix in the other parts. If you have a computer DAW, then it may be a good idea to silence all of the parts when the vocalist isn't singing. But when the music comes in, headphone level is not an issue.

Recording in another room from the recorder is always a good idea, get a long high-quality cable and go to town.

Rev E
 
when i was a little vague on setting up a good monitoring mix for people recording in the studio , i would often take their word for it on how loud their mix was.. Until once i was recording this vocalist , the one i mentioned before, and there was a slight feed back coming through on the mix.. It wasnt till i went into the studio and put on his phones i realised they were just so loud .. So i spose it can be a problem but u should always check levels yourself. Now i have a pretty good idea about the headphone amp im using so i can really create a nice quiet mix where everything can be heard.. Hey rev , its great to hear someone else does that , well only if im recording a very quiet musical part when vocals are still there... but it only takes a few secs to do so i dont mind sometimes ..
But like rev said , the next room is the best option for recording , always i think ... unless its some DI guitar oart , thats always fun to be able to sit in the control room while playing. Ive got things setup so a guitarist can have his/her amp in the studio , while sitting in the control room playing ..pretty trippy i think, buts i think most of the big studios would do this wouldnt they .. I dont have heaps expensive cables so sometimes i wonder if this is the best idea.. but its good to be able to do it though..
spider
 
Make 'em work for it

Jerry Wexler said of headphone mixes to give the artist the "minimum legal requirement",the idea being that the singer will focus more and put forth a little more effort and energy in the performance.It seems to have worked for Aretha Franklin...
 
yeah virtual ray - also if they are too loud you can't pick pitch too well. Shame it's a fostex not a cpu noise cos you can remove the cpu noise in soundforge using the noise reduction plugin.
cheers
 
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