home mic recording problems

[kr236rk]

hi,

i am using a condenser mic to my pc through a dedicated interface, but i am picking up a lot of incidental noise. i suspect this is caused by the closeness of the interface/mic to the pc: what are the options if so please? has anyone / is anyone experiencing this problem?

the only resolution i can see is to mic record away from the pc - but then i can't view or adjust settings on my monitor, a real Catch 22?

thanks

kr

 

[darrin_h2000]

Id locate the PC unit itself outside of the tracking room.

 

[Jim Lad]

I actually drilled a hole in the wall for the USB cable and put the interface and microphones in the adjacent room but then, I married the most patient woman in the world.

 

[Shadow_7]

What sort of incidental noises? And what mic and interface?

When I was using cheap electret mics, if I ran the cable past my monitor/LCD, the video activity from it would influence the recorded sound. Clicks that seemed to happen in parallel with the clock counting the seconds of the recording (ardour). The solution there was just to not clip the mic to my LCD. Which made it a little pointless to use a small and cheap electret.

Other sources are fan noise and such from your computer. Use a dynamic further away to lessen that, or just take the fan and computer noise out of the room. There's cable extensions, wireless keyboards and the likes to let you have your desktop many feet away from you, while still being able to use the PC at your location. Worst case scenrio, put it in some sort of pet cage and throw a comforter over it, while leaving the back side open to vent heat. Other rooms with holes in the wall works too. Or just get one of those fanless type computers / tablet PCs. Unless you doing something hefty that requires a full fledged computer, there's many other options these days.

But since we don't know which noise you're referencing... Could be hum from a ground / power issue. Could be cell phone handshakes from unbalanced / unshielded cables. Could be that radio tower outside your apartment window. Could be psychic spies. Who knows...