Noise problems when recording harp

H

Harpkonst

New member
I've been struggling with noise problems ever since I started recording my stringed harp. Finally I got a little money so I'm thinking about upgrading my gear, but I don't now where to start.

The signal path I'm having now:

Harp - dynamic mic less than 20 cm away (Shure sm58 and/or JTS TK600) - xlr-xlr-cable - Steinberg CI1 soundcard (gain close to max) - usb to computer (at the moment Sony Vaio, but I've had the same problems with earlier laptops and stationary computers)

Somewhere down the line there's a noise picked up and recorded, I think it's to loud but maybe it's a normal noise that I have to live with. What do you think? (here's a clip, raw, the noise is best heard in the beginning before I start playing. (There's a metallic ringing noise when I play too, but that's some part of the harp vibrating, I will try and localize that and muffle it somehow later)).
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?res...2304&authkey=!ACcRhlSYuM7ztn0&ithint=file,wav

The noise is all over the spectrum, so it's hard (impossible?) to remove with EQ. Noise reductions (like Reaper's fir) makes the harp tone sound too bad I think. Noise gate don't use to work well with the harps long tones.

I don't think it's the noise in the room that's picked up. I don't hear any difference from when the room is very silent to when the refridgerator starts buzzing and the computer fan goes on. I also tried to move the harp and mic into the small walk-in-closet (very quiet place) but the noise recorded was still the same. I'm very carefull so the soundcables do not get close to any powercables.

I have tested with both the mics, different cables, another usb-cable, different distance with the mic from the harps soundboard - still the same noise. Ok, I don't have very expensive gear, and I am recording in my livingroom, but if I should upgrade something, what should I start with? Or is there anything else I could try?

It would be so fun to be able to make nice recordings, I've been struggling with this annoying noise for years.
Any tips?
 
What noise are you hearing? I listened and didn't hear anything. Maybe the problem is you have the ASIO driver set too low. Depending on yur computer and how much is running on it, low buffer settings will give you a lot of pops and clicks. Raise it up when listening and lower if you need to monitor when recording. Even when recording, many DAWs compensate for the latency and gets it back in alignment.

You may also benefit from a good condenser mic and if your room doesn't sound bad, moved back to get a more balanced recording from the harp. You will need to experiment to hear what the optimal mic placement would be for your room and instrument.

First step, raise your ASIO buffer settings and that will remove the clicks that you hear, but they are not coming into the recording. You should be careful not to clip (input source going over 0) when recording. You can get gain in your DAW, but clipping can't be fixed.

Hoped this helped.
 
I guess it's both good and bad you don't hear the noise, DM60. Good because maybe it's not so much to worry about then, but bad because... well, it's still there and I still think it's annoying. I have listened to it on different computers and with different headphones and still hear it. It's a hissing noise, and maybe it's ok when you listen to the track in a nice low volume, but if I'm ever gonna enter a loudness war, I'm gonna have an army of hissing snakes covering my harp tones.

I tried changing the buffer setting both up and down - no change.

I also tried removing the mics and cables from the soundcard and recorded with empty sockets - still the hissing noise was there. Raising the gain raised the amount of noise, lowering gain gave me less noise. So I guess my mics are innocent. (I still think getting a nice condenser is a good idea though, to capture better sound, even if is has nothing to do with the noise in this case. And also, of course, move around a bit to find the sweet spots. Now I kept the mics as close as I could to get stronger signals so I didn't have to raise the volume, and by that also the noise, so much. But if I could get rid of the noise I could experiment more with mic placement.)

After that I plugged in the mics again and recorded with less gain, and the result was better. But still a little bit too much hiss in my taste.

Am I right in guessing the soundcard is the culprit? If so, then the question is in what price range I need to look in to get a more quiet soundcard. Any ideas?
 
Try this, turn your gain down lower, your sound will be low in the DAW. You can then boast it inside the DAW with little negative affect on the sound quality. This will remove any hiss you would get from your pre-amps. In the digital world, you don't have to record as hot, just enough to hear the full sound. Mixing and boasting the sound level will be a part of your mixing.
 
Ok, just tried that. No luck. How do you recommend boasting the sound level? I tried normalization and got an awful lot of noise.
 
If you have noise, it must be in the recording. Try tracking with lower gain, then in the DAW, raise the level.

I also have to ask again, what noise? Popping and clicking? If that is the case, increase your buffer setting in your interface to check if that is where your noise is coming from. Try something like 1024, if it stops, then you know it is the card and buffer setting. You can start reducing the buffer until you hear it again. Once that is sorted out, then it is probably an exercise in optimizing your computer for recording and playback.
 
No, not popping or clicking, it's a ssssssssss noise. I think it's called hissing in English, maybe it's called white noise, or pink or something. Changing the buffer did not help.

I tried to record with almost no gain, but then to be able to hear the harp I normalized in the daw and ok, signal got louder but so did the noise too. It's like I'm stuck: if I record with too much gain, I get a lot of noise. If I record with too little, I have to raise the volume and by that I can hear all the noise too.
 
Put up a sample. You could have an interface problem, a mic problem or a performance problem. At this point, hard for me to really know what you are calling noise. I went and listened again to your sample. It sounded clean to me, therefore I am not sure what you are hearing. The hiss may be on your play back system. I did not hear a lot of hiss (an expected amount and it was very low).

One thing I can tell you, if you have your playback volume on your interface too high, it will clip the interface amp. Try turning it down and if you are playing back through a stereo, turn up your stereo, not the output on the interface. Your volume knob should stay down around 3/4 or less of full volume.
 
Thanks for the tip on the interface output volume, I played around with it some and... gah, hard to say if it made it better. My head is starting to spin with all the samples and listening now... :)

Maybe it is an expected amount of hiss and maybe I'm worried about nothing, that would be great to know though.

Here's some more examples:
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=48CB5562F536EC2D!12341&authkey=!AKZWq97NhrYtAhE&ithint=folder,

harp noise - mid gain 1 = Close to as good as I can get it, mid gain and mics pretty close.
harp noise - mid gain 2 normalized = I tried to get it closer in volume to my reference track by simply normalize it, is the hiss level till acceptable?

harp noise - low gain 1 = very little gain, very quiet sample.
harp noise - low gain 2 normalized = same sample but normalized, and here you can hear an awful lot of that noise.

I'm still a novice with all this different volume, gain, loudness-stuff, and I would really like to know how I can make decent tracks with good levels.
 
Sadly, the real issue here is that your sound device isn't the quietest, and you have a rather insensitive dynamic mic. The combination of the two is giving you the constant, annoying hiss (and that is the right word) in the background. For harp, a condenser, or possibly two condensers is better because their output is greater, and your preamp doesn't have to work so hard.

See if you can borrow a condenser and repeat the experiment!
 
First one, I heard nothing, second one had hiss, the last one was pretty quiet. But I do think to Rob's post, you probably should switch to a condenser mic(s). It would do a few things, give you more gain from the mic itself, capture your harp's full range better, allow you to move further back to remove some proximity affect and allow to move the microphone for the best sound.

One thing to note here is, as you move away from the source of the recording, your room will start to come into influencing your sound. Once you get a good recording where the noise level is tolerable, you will then have to work with the room to find the best place to record the instrument for the best sound. You may have to do some sound treatment to tame you room. But I would first focus on getting a good recording, then a good sound.

I think now that we understand the problem, others can come i and provide more assistance on various ways to get the best quality of sound. Lots of people know how to capture acoustic sounds in a room on the board. I am not really that knowledgeable in that area.

Hope this helps.
 
Ok, thanks Rob and DM60. It's great to have it confirmed that the hiss levels are not unusual and that a condenser mic could be of help. I think so too.
 
Sob. I borrowed a condenser mic from my cousin, a Behringer C-1. I don't know if it's a good one. Anyway, it didn't produce any miracle, instead the hiss was almost worse. I tried some different gain levels but with the same results as with the dynamics - the difference between signal and hiss is too small. (And I'm sure it's not the room noise, I recorded both when the computer fan and fridge was on and when they were of - no change in hiss level at all.) Could be a bad mic I guess, but it was still a bit discouraging.

My cousin recommended to get an usb-mic instead, and just skip the step with a soundcard that adds hiss. What do you think about that?
 
Here's two clips of the condenser mic tries:
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=48CB5562F536EC2D!12374&authkey=!AKDkWbofDkCwfpA&ithint=folder,
1 - harp hiss cond mic 1 normalized = I normalized it to match the levels of a reference track, one step closer to "radio ready". In my opinion, way to much hiss. I can after this try and eq some away, but I doubt that'll be enough.
2 - harp hiss cond mic 1 = the same clip but before normalization. It was recorded with about 40% gain, and in about the same position as one of the dynamics before, that is about 20 cm away from the soundboard.

Please say there's something wrong with the mic (Behringer c-1), because if a condenser don't give me better hiss levels than this, then there's no point in getting one I think.

Here's also a story about why I'm so hooked up on the hiss thing:
On my last project I mixed it using speakers and headphones and it sounded allright, even great on the speakers. I listened to it on some really crappy old speakers too, and since it sounded ok on those too I thought I was good to go. Started planning the release party when I happened to take the cd to my office and listened with some, what I thought, really cheap and crappy headphones... You know how some bathroom lights can show you what you really look like, in a quite unflattering way? This was the kind of headphones I had found. And it wasn't flattering at all to listen to my mastered mix through them - it was truly awful. I could hear Everything! Let's just say that the releaseparty had to be postponed.
So I thought that hereafter I'm gonna listen with those kind of headphones up first, to make sure the tracks are clean and fixed, and then move over to mix on the speakers. (One thing I could really hear on that project was how the noise reduction I had used actually sounded. Sure it was quiet between the phrases, but when I was playing the harp it made this ss ss ss ss hiss noise (I guess somewhat corresponding to the long strings wavelengths) and it sounded like snakes so I call it the snakenoise. Not fun finding it there amongst my beautifull, lovely, blissful harptones!) ;)
So, maybe that's why I hear all the hiss so much, because I'm really trying too, choosing the headphones and crank up the volume until I hear it. Maybe I should just go back to mixing on the speakers and pretend the hiss isn't there (and pray no end-listener will ever raise the volume or use worse speakers than I use).
 
My guess is that the main culprit in generating the hiss is the mic preamp on the interface. They don't generally have a ton of gain on tap, and if you really have to crank the input level on the preamp, it's gonna generate more noise. The SM58, being a dynamic mic, will require more gain from the preamp. And the C-1 has a bit of reputation for being a relatively noisy mic...so even if it puts out a hotter signal, allowing a lower preamp level, it may be a wash if the C1 introduces more noise.

Do you have any friends that either have a different audio interface or an external preamp that you could try? At least you could confirm or rule out the interface's preamps as the culprit.

I have an FMR RNP, which is a fine mid-level preamp. Even it gets a little hissy at its higher gain settings.

Also, what are you monitoring through? You'll want to do all of your mixing/engineering on some reasonably accurate (non-flattering) monitors so you can get a more honest impression of what the audio sounds like. It sounds like you'd been mixing on sub-par speakers and finally heard your mix on a more accurate set that exposed the flaws. That's exactly why all of us home recording geeks lust over good reference monitors
 
I heard the hiss, but as before, for the level of equipment, it seemed reasonable. If you don't want to invest in a better condenser mic so you don't have to use as much gain, you may want to try a noise gate to remove the hiss at the lower level. Once you record, the hiss is no longer audible.

For now, I would learn to sue a noise gate, as you get more comfortable with recording, get a better condenser microphone and turn down the gain on your pre-amp. I have to assume money is an issue, therefore that is the poor man's alternative.

As Tadpui stated, maybe try and borrow another microphone and test. But you are going to have to accept some amount of hiss at the lower price range.
 
At the moment I'm ready to spend about 500$, or more if it would really help, to get away from as much hiss as I can. It could be on a new mic, soundcard, a pre-amp, a plugin, or whatever, or a combination of those. I have wasted more than ten years on this noisy mess and I hope I don't need to waste another ten. I also realise that I probably can't get myself a pro-studio, but I'm interested in what options I have.

Thanks Tadpui for confirming the c-1 as being noisy, then there's still hope that a better condenser could help a bit. Maybe in a combination with a better soundcard. Or maybe a pre-amp. I haven't worked with pre-amps before (except for some pre-amp-like device that I think is broken or something, it produced so much bad hiss that I kicked it out of the chain last year.)

I'm listening, mostly, through some speakers with a subwoofer that I also use for leasure music listening, movie-watching, computering... I like them, but I guess maybe they are a bit flattering. When I studied music in school I learned that it's best to listen to the mix on speakers you are accoustomed to, so we all got a copy of the class production to try it out at home at our own stereos. So I thought, when I started to record myself, that I should use those speaker from the start, since my ears know them and knows how other music sounds on them. (I can check out what kind they are when I get home, I'm at work now.) But I also use different headphones and other speakers to dubblecheck the final results with. So far I haven't focused so much on color of the tone and adjusting the frequenses for a beautiful sound, I just try to get a decent clean tone without hiss and other artifacts. Maybe I need better monitors too, but it seems like an even more difficult chapter.

DM60, do you mean a noise-gate to put in before the signal reaches the soundcard, or as a thing to use to polish it after it's recorded? I have tried it after, but with no good result. Maybe the touch of a pro could make it work, but for me I can get the interspaces quiet, but when the harp starts to play the hiss is among the tones, and at the end of playing I get the ss ss ss, or that the long end tone is wobbling over the threshold as it fades out: tone-quiet-tone-quiet-tone-quiet. Hmm, I have also tried it on an effect pedal with the same result.

If I move up from the lower price range, what range are we talking about then? Just curious, good to know what to aim for.
 
Before you run out and spend money, if you can get another mic and try out. It could be the pre-amps on the sound card, I haven't used that sound card, so I really couldn't say. But if you can try another mic, from a known brand, but within a decent price range (usually in US $ around 200-300). They won't be perfect, but would give a decent performance.

I am just trying to help you spend your money wisely, if you have a music store, ask to try some of their mics and make sure you can take them back. If you keep getting hiss to a level you don't like, then you can ask about various interface options.
 
And I'm so grateful for your help, I'm really desperate for it! :)

I'm lucky to have a local music store, but they admitted that they are not so familiar with recording on a computer. And they don't seem to have so many mics in store, but I will ask again what help they can provide in this.
 
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