HELP: Removing unwanted guitar humming/latency from recording

J

juzcook

New member
Hi, I've just started building a small home studio with pretty decent equipment. I'm using a Eurorack UB-2442 12 Channel Mixer running through an iMic into an Apple G4 iBook running Pro Tools 5.0 in OS 9.2.2.

I'm monitoring sound after it's been recorded with 2x 7" Speakers through an amplifier, where the humming is only slightly heard. However when listening to the recording in iTunes or from a CD the hum is much more evident.

When recording, I'm only using a standard vocal mic approx. 10-20 cm from the Guitar amplifier's (60 watt) speaker at just above half volume. There is very little EQ being used on the mixer but that doesn't stop the humming. The Guitar amplifier itself has been readjusted many times (ie. Reducing Bass, Volume, Presence, Mids etc) and the hum persists. I'm looking for a cheap way of solving this problem, or the expensive way if it's the only way.

The other problem is recording with the sound being input a split second after it's heard causing a delay and timing errors which must then be corrected manually. When recording over the top of multiple tracks I must mute the tracks being recorded in order to keep time. Remember I'm using Mac OS 9.2.2 for all of this because OS X brings me an error when using Pro Tools LE 6.0 saying the timing is out and I should reset my clock settings.

If anyone can help me solve any or all of these issues, it would be greatly appreciated.
 
I don't know your level of experience with recording so I'll assume you're a noob.

Is the humming sound evident only during guitar pauses? If so, then a gate will hide this.

If you hear the humming during your playing, then your amp is probably making excessive noise (bad ground). Or you have a bad connection in your setup.

It's hard to really know what you're experiencing...maybe if you post a clip of your recording it may help diagnose.
 
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Another option, which might represent more of a change than is desired, is to use gear like POD or V-Amp for recording. These effects units have a wide range of sounds and can directly interface with recording gear with no mics needed. The result can be very quiet.

Ed
 
Hum is generally pretty low frequency. You can minimize it by employing a low-cut eq and dialing it up to where the sound is diminished. Try a low-cut somewhere between 80-150Hz. If these guitars are going to be mixed in with other instruments (bass/drums) that will fill out the lower frequencies, you don't generally need these frequencies from the guitars, anyway.
 
Hey thanks for the help, I'll get right into trying out these ideas, if I can't solve it then I'll post a sample of the audio I'm having trouble with.
 
juzcook said:
Hi, I've just started building a small home studio with pretty decent equipment. I'm using a Eurorack UB-2442 12 Channel Mixer running through an iMic into an Apple G4 iBook running Pro Tools 5.0 in OS 9.2.2.

I'm monitoring sound after it's been recorded with 2x 7" Speakers through an amplifier, where the humming is only slightly heard. However when listening to the recording in iTunes or from a CD the hum is much more evident.
Click to expand...

If it's a really old iMic (like three years), it might have been made before they added a filter capacitor on the power rail, which could explain the hum if you moved it to a newer laptop. Beyond that... probably just a lack of a really solid shared ground.


juzcook said:
The other problem is recording with the sound being input a split second after it's heard causing a delay and timing errors which must then be corrected manually. When recording over the top of multiple tracks I must mute the tracks being recorded in order to keep time. Remember I'm using Mac OS 9.2.2 for all of this because OS X brings me an error when using Pro Tools LE 6.0 saying the timing is out and I should reset my clock settings.
Click to expand...

That was my experience with the iMic as well, which is why I quickly abandoned any hope of using it for recording (as an replacement for the then-broken audio jack on my PowerBook Pismo).

Since you have an outboard mixer, though, you can work around the problem. Turn software play-through off and just mix in a bit of the live audio in the output. (Note: this means you can't put the iMic in a channel insert. Use an effects send to feed the mic signal to the iMic instead, then bring the iMic's output into a different set of inputs.)

You should be able to calibrate your audio software to handle the latency as far as lining up the tracks. It's the whole hearing yourself delayed a bit thing that causes problems.
 
I just have everything as loud as possible so that the hum isn't noticable when the guitar is playing.

Then I shove a gate on so that the hum dissapears when the guitar isn't playing.
 
Well that's where the problem is because the ibook im using doesn't have an input jack, which is why I have to use the iMic as my only input and because it's usb the latency just doesn't like to fix itself. Btw the iMic is about 1 year old.

If you can't help me out with this iBook can you recommend one that will work great solely for recording?

Thanks
 
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