need to reduce noise

[vask100]

gentlemen;

i'm an experienced recording artist, new however to recording my own vocals in my newly designed home studio. i'm still tweaking the overall acoustics, however a bigger issue is the amount of noise/signal that goes into the mic line of my soundcard (emu 1212m) when i hook up the mike. i have an at4040 mic and a presonus/eureka preamp. i've yet to master using the preamp settings, but when i turn up the master on the preamp to monitor myself through headphones, i'm getting a significant amount of signal into the line before anything begins.

after recording; on playback when the line opens up to begin the vocal track, there's far too much noise to even consider using the vocal; obviously, once the singer is performing the noise is masked, but it's imperative to reduce the noise at the signal point. i have an alesis compressor/gate, which i'm going to use (duh!) but it seems as though the noise from my cpu is bleeding into my sound card an emu1212m.

does anyone have any suggestions as to how to minimize noise from a cpu. thanks in advance for any direction on this matter.

 

[Rust E-Z]

Have you checked cables/connectors for shorts, also make sure that you don't have any power cables crossing signal cables. It seems like the gear in your recording chain should be pretty quiet.

 

[Big Kenny]

Ground Loops?

 

[amarach]

i'm still tweaking the overall acoustics, however a bigger issue is the amount of noise/signal that goes into the mic line of my soundcard (emu 1212m) when i hook up the mike.

use the Line input of your soundcard..
the pre-amp should bring the mic level signal up to line level..
it should get rid of the noise

 

[amarach]

double post. sorry.