Hiss on home PC recording

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pratty8652

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Hello everyone.

When I record onto my PC I hear a steady hiss when I play it back through audacity.
I am using a Sennheiser MK4 hooked up to a USB Dual Pre powered by USB from the computer. I have replaced everything in case they were the issue.
The mic is new, I bought a new lead and a new preamp but the issue remains.

The strange thing is that I have recordings with no hiss whatsoever and then all of a sudden there it was.

Can anyone help? I haven't changed anything to account for the hiss, I am perplexed.

Thank you in advance for any assistance.
 
Hey. This is the art dual pre, right?
Can you post an example clip?

These mics are very sensitive. Are you sure it's not picking up something from within the room?
A fan, A/C, computer noise etc?
 
White noise. Could be a number of things. The clip without hiss was recorded with exactly the same gear in exactly the same manner with all settings exactly the same? You have not touched a knob ANYWHERE? (Personal question, I know...:eek:)

You can get white noise by incorrect gain staging... turn any gear up enough and that's what you get. For instance if you turn your pre's / interface gain up and then lower it in your DAW / editor, you'll get more white noise.

What gain do you have set on your pre/interface? Is the track in Audacity set to unity gain, and the preamp/interface gain set as low as it can be so that the recorded voice is peaking at about -18db in Audacity?

Does the mic have a pad switch that you've accidentally engaged and you've turned up the gain to compensate? Does the interface have a pad switch that you've accidentally engaged and you've turned up the gain to compensate?
 
^^ All good questions.
I noticed there's an audible fan (or something like it) in the 'clean' recording too, btw.
 
Is the hiss coming from your playback? Or is it actually in the recorded file? If so you can try filtering it out.
 
Hello,

Thank you for all your help so far.
The gain on the preamp is set to 18.
The gain on the recording when listening back on audacity is 0
The mic level in windows is 90.
The recordings are now very quiet and I need to turn my speakers up pretty loud to hear anything.
There aren't many knobs to turn and I feel like I have tried every configuration.
 
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Audacity is using the USB Art Dual Pre as the sound source, yes?

"Mic volume in Windows" should be irrelevant - I wouldn't even know where to find that setting - the internal soundcard should be being replaced by your Art Dual Pre - that is what your little box is, isn't it? You were asked that and you didn't reply.

The gain on the recording when listening back on Audacity is of no interest. The gain on the recording in Audacity when recording is. Still unity/0?

What level is your recording peaking at in Audacity whilst you're recording? (I hate Audacity - it's not fundamentally designed for what you're using it for... these questions would be more easily answered if you were using real DAW software, however the software itself shouldn't be the issue).

I'm trying to understand your gain structure... you have a microphone, it goes into a preamplifier which adds gain, it gets converted to digital in your USB unit and goes via USB into software which has a gain setting on the track you're recording onto (should be 0/unity) and then hits the track at a certain level of gain/volume based on how loud the recording is natively (how loud the person is speaking, how close they are to the mic) and the amount of gain applied by the preamp in the USB unit, hopefully correctly converted by the converter in the USB unit, and fed down into the PC and the software.

Essentially, I'm asking the same questions I asked yesterday, and which you haven't successfully answered. If this is going over your head then you've been lucky to date and you need to do some reading. The general way to diagnose any problem is to start with the assumption that you, the moneky with their hands on the switches, are doing something wrong. Once that's ruled out, then we move onto the gear...

The phantom power is on, yes?

Try turning the gain up a bit and see if you can clip the interface - there's a light that will tell you - this might rule out that your mic/phantom power - yell really loudly into the microphone from a distance of about 1mm.. can you clip it (no need to record this BTW...)

Is the "mix" button on the back of the interface in the central position... (anybody else - WTF is that for anyway?)

Report back.
 
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