How Quiet (or noisy) Is Your Neighborhood?

[Dani Pace]

I live in Smalltown America, typical suburbia, in what is often called "a quiet neighborhood. Most of the time it is fairly quiet and peaceful, until I start recording! It seem like every time I push the record button at least 7 mowers start at the same instant, and none of them have a muffler. If not mowers, the fire department has to rush up our street. Most neighbors have kids and backyard pools, lots of squeels and screams. There are at least 10 million watt stereos within a 2 block radius of me with extra boost on bass. No less than 40 barking dogs within hearing distance. A few other surprise sounds come along occasionally, car crashes, fireworks, motorcycles and the rare gunshot or two.
My studio is fairly well design to keep sound in, when I get 70-80 dbl readings on the inside, I get 25-30 readings (1 foot from doors, windows and walls) outside, I'm trying to do my part to keep it a quiet neighborhood. Sometimes though I discover some sound that has found it's way from the outside onto my recordings. Imagine the shoch when you playback a lovely female vocalist then all of a sudden Boom Thump Thump Boom Roarrrrr, right in the middle of an otherwise near perfect track. I've had this happen on several occasions.
Ok I'm just ranting, but I have to wonder if this or anything similar happens to any of you other guys? Maybe the whole neighborhood just wants to get on the record, too bad the arraingement dosen't call for harmonic mowers.

 

[andyhix]

Yep, my neighborhood has this serious din reminiscent of a refrigerator running, a central air conditioning unit, a computer fan, chairs creaking, feet shuffling, toddlers yelling, and something that sounds like "So you think you can dance" filtered through hardwood floors and a subfloor. It's really wierd.

Oh yeah, and there's the traffic. I live on a small town residential street, 35 mph, but it also is the main route for trucks and other traffic to get to/fro downtown, so it can be loud between 4 and 6. Middle of the night, though, it's dead quiet. Never measured it though. I prefer to live in ignorant bliss about all the crap making it onto my recordings.

 

[TexRoadkill]

My only problem is the neighbor with 4 dogs that like to all bark at random times.

 

[BushmasterM4]

Man, Im lucky Im in the country and dont have to worry about being loud. I can crank it to ten and wouldnt bug anyone. And the only outside noise is maybe a deer or racoon knocking at my door.

 

[punkin]

I'm out in the sticks...not a problem except for the damn crickets!!!!!!!

 

[DavidK]

I have a motorcycle on my last CD. Err, and I didnt write a motorcycle part. I also have a spot where the cat knocked something over. The latter is on a song that has 16 violins. I didnt have the computer power then, so I would record the violins in one session and import them into the piece as a stereo track. It wasnt worth figuring out which of the 16 had the cat on it.

My place is very noisy, so I literally write music around it. For example, whenever you hear my violin on a recording, it is over a bunch of synth tracks. I do stuff like " Nah, that will never work because of noise, I will add a noisy choir". Synths and samples are a lot noisier than people realize, but it is a steady and usable noise that one can use to their advantage. I could never get away with something like a solo Bach piece.

Being a trained orchestrator has it's advantages. If there is noise on a track but I want to use it, I will write something to counter the noise. It works every time. Since my music is dense and complex, I can get away with murder.

People have complimented me on my recordings, for being so clean. HONESTLY, I have some of the noisiest recordings of anyone in this forum. What I do have as a way around it via orchestrations. On a track I did last year, I was very close mic'ed to the fiddle and you could hear me breathing very loudly. I put in rain. Really. It was an incredible effect, it was actually raining when I did it so I stuck a mic out the door. It sounded bad so I put in a rain sample. Worked like a charm, people thought I was some kind of ambient genius when I was just covering noise.

 

[Decipha]

the rare gunshot or two

disturbing, any way, It seems to want to storm when I feel creative

sound deaden your recording area and you shouldn't have as much of an issue with unwanted noise

 

[cnix]

Pretty lucky here as far as noise goes. I have set up my space in the finished basement, ZERO noise 95% of the time. It is so quiet I can hear the clock on the wall when I am tracking, so I just have to remember that when I am in record mode, take the clock out. No fans on outboard gear, preamps, eq, compressors, effects, etc., and run digital into a digital workstation bypassing built in pre's. The cooling fan on the workstation shuts down once I hit the record button. Quiet!! I can play or sing AND run all the controls with no background noise, or need for a control room. The ultimate one man band and crew.

 

[danny.guitar]

My street can be pretty busy, but other than a few cars it's okay...

Sometimes (a lot), the Mexicans across the street will play their shitty music real loud. Mexican/polka/campfire music. Doesn't go to well with acoustic stuff...sometimes I'm forced to do a highpass at 100+ Hz to get rid of the boomy bass that seeps into my music.

So you really just need to find the right time of day to record.

 

[CGBMike]

My area can be completely silent, no noise at all...then all of a sudden 2 lorries appear full of insanely noisey men who enjoy shouting. Normally when I record acoustic guitar or vocals