Hiss, after i buy new pre amp and mic

[word_play]

Hey guys

i previous had a radioshack mic going straight into my 'mic in' on my pc... i bought a new pre amp and a mic today. before i had them, i didnt get any hiss, now when i plug the pre into the line in and set it all up im getting some hiss... when i used to record without the pre i would get two bars in the track one on top one on the bottom of the same audio (im assuming this is in stereo) now only the top one is recording and the bottom one isnt, is that where the hiss is? if so how do i record in mono if thats the case? how do i get rid of the hiss??

what are some good gain and output levels?

Pre Amp- dbx Mini-Pre
Mic: Shure SM58

thanks a lot.

 

[word_play]

k i figuered out how to record in mono, now the thing is, when i record, the places where i dont speak has a lot of hiss, i cut that and deleted all the empty space, but when i get to some parts in my vocals, u can sorta hear the hiss.. any thoughts?

thanks.

forgive me im new with this.

 

[lookingforcool]

until you can afford a new soundcard, use the noise reduction in CEP.

just highlight a section of the wav with nothing on it (except noise.) then open up the NR plug. click "get profile from selection" (i think that's what it says.) then click cancel. then highlight the whole wav. then go back into NR, and just click okay.

should do pretty good. i've always been surprised by how well that function works.

.pete.

 

[Change of POETS]

until you can afford a new soundcard, use the noise reduction in CEP.

just highlight a section of the wav with nothing on it (except noise.) then open up the NR plug. click "get profile from selection" (i think that's what it says.) then click cancel. then highlight the whole wav. then go back into NR, and just click okay.

should do pretty good. i've always been surprised by how well that function works.

.pete.

This is the best way to go about it.

However, I'm wondering why your mic pre is causing you to record in mono?

That shouldn't be the case at all... not sure what your issue is actually... you may want to look into getting a new soundcard.

 

[chrisharris]

Your mic pre is probably making you record in mono because you need a little adapter to split the signal before it hits the soundcard. However, recording in mono is cool about 90% of the time for music...the exceptions being if you're recording something with stereo FX live. I tend to record everything dry and process it later, because (as I've learned), no matter how kick ass something sounds in the headphones when I'm recording it, I ALWAYS wanna' change it later. Mono saves 1/2 the hard drive space too; BE SURE TO TRACK AND MIX IN 32 BIT, BTW...IT MATTERS A LOT IN CEP.

Oh yeah, your original question. The reason you're getting hiss from the new mic and the preamp is pretty simple...you're just getting a stronger signal TO the soundcard than you had before. The way you were setup before probably forced you to send more of what you were actually recording to the soundcard in order to hear it. Recording 101 is send as much of whatever you're trying to record as you can without clipping, because whatever part of the track is taken up by sound is NOT available to be occupied by hiss. If you were turning your amp up to 9 before you got the preamp and new mic, you probably were filling up that wav file pretty well...or vocally, you got closer to the mic and sang out a little more...whatever...you were sending more SOUND to the computer. With a preamp, you can jack it up loud enough that you can pick up your next door neighbor farting from 300 yards away, but there's gonna' be a TON of hiss (unless he farts like a bomb going off, lol).

Bottom line, turn your preamp Gain DOWN until you hear very little hiss in the headphones...and NONE while you're singing. If your preamp has a HI/LO Gain Range, turn it to LO.

The principle is the same...you want to send as hot a signal from the source (your vocal cords, an amp) as you can so that you can turn down the noisemakers (preamps, FX units) as much as possible. A preamp is just another piece of equipment to introduce noise into the chain...although it's a damned fine tradeoff if you use it right.

Hope this helps.

 

[word_play]

thanks a lot guys.. im going to try out some of the stuff you suggested. appreciate it.

 

[word_play]

until you can afford a new soundcard, use the noise reduction in CEP.

just highlight a section of the wav with nothing on it (except noise.) then open up the NR plug. click "get profile from selection" (i think that's what it says.) then click cancel. then highlight the whole wav. then go back into NR, and just click okay.

should do pretty good. i've always been surprised by how well that function works.

.pete.

i have no idea how to do this, my apologies... can you do a step by step thing for me? by the way..when i click noise reduction on the side bar, none of the options allowed me to click on them, they werent highligted, they were grey... thanks.

 

[chrisharris]

i have no idea how to do this, my apologies...

That's what the "Help" file is for. Read it.

In the meantime, just remember that the whole noise reduction process should START with you highlighting some portion of the wav file that has hiss..AND NOTHING BUT HISS in it. The software does a kind of a "profile" check, which should make more sense once you read the manual.

 

[dobro]

red arrow indicates portion of file containing little or nothing but hissssss (or the sound of nothing, which is different than nothing at al)

 

[word_play]

That's what the "Help" file is for. Read it.

In the meantime, just remember that the whole noise reduction process should START with you highlighting some portion of the wav file that has hiss..AND NOTHING BUT HISS in it. The software does a kind of a "profile" check, which should make more sense once you read the manual.

what happens if i do a noise or hiss reduction on the actual vocal, cause theres still a faint hiss on the vocal..

thank u

 

[chrisharris]

what happens if i do a noise or hiss reduction on the actual vocal, cause theres still a faint hiss on the vocal..

thank u

Again, the help file explains this...but it's a 3 step process...first, you have to find some hiss (see the picture), then, you tell the computer to eliminate the hiss just in that section. THEN, you select the whole wav file and tell the program to remove the same kind of hiss that you just eliminated from the "empty" part of the track from the whole track. In the pic I posted, I was just showing you the first step, because it's the most confusing. If you just run a "noise reduction" over the whole file, without profiling the noise, then what you'll end up with is a file that sounds like digital bells...and everything else will be gone, lol. I did that the first time, then I read the HELP FILE.

Incidentally, noise reduction is pretty cool, but it does leave these little digital bubble sounds in place of the hiss...which are supposed to be less noticeable than hiss...and are less noticeable while music is playing, but are kind of annoying when you hear them on a fade out or something.

On the other hand the "HISS REDUCTION" feature seems to work better for me, in that it leaves less of the obvious digital weirdness. "Light hiss reduction" is a decent preset, although I turn the floor some...instead of +5, go for about -5...more than that really dulls the sound too much...I'd rather have hiss than a dull tone. Plus, the hiss reduction is a lot simpler to work, b/c you don't have to tell the computer what kind of noise to eliminate...it already knows...you just tell it HOW MUCH of the hiss to eliminate.

Dude, "HELP FILE"... try it, lol.

 

[word_play]

thanks for all ur help chris, appreciate it