Too Much Preamp Hiss When Fingerpicking On Acoustic Guitar

  • Thread starter Thread starter afrothunder89
  • Start date Start date
A

afrothunder89

New member
Hey guys, how can I eliminate this problem?

I'd love to be able to have a super clean recording of me gently plucking guitar strings, but everytime I do that, I have to crank up my preamp to componsate for the low volume which ends up introducing a lot of noise!

I can get a FAIRLY quiet recording when I'm doing strummy stuff...Maybe I'm not using my preamp correctly? Anyways, thanks in advance!
 
What preamp and mic(s) are you using?

Where is the positioned, and how far from the guitar?
 
I got a modded golden age projects pre-73. I'm also using the preamp in my Fireface UCX.

Microphones are Sennheiser e609 and Josephson e22s.

I'm having this issue with both preamps. I'm convinced that something isn't right, but I have no idea why or how. It is very frustrating because I believe that I should be getting much better results with this equipment.
 
afrothunder89 said:
I have to crank up my preamp to componsate for the low volume which ends up introducing a lot of noise
Click to expand...
What do you mean by "low volume"? What's your level hitting on the meters? It's possible you're just trying to record too hot. It's hard to know, though, without knowing what you mean by "low volume".
 
What do you mean by "low volume"? What's your level hitting on the meters? It's possible you're just trying to record too hot. It's hard to know, though, without knowing what you mean by "low volume".
Click to expand...

Low volume of playing. My finger picking is pretty quiet.
 
afrothunder89 said:
Low volume of playing. My finger picking is pretty quiet.
Click to expand...
I understand that. But "low volume" is subjective and relative. What levels are you going for? Do you mean "low volume" compared to a commercial CD? It's hard to help you without knowing what you mean. I'm guessing you're trying to record too hot, but we may never know.
 
To ask a different way - what the meters saying when you record? Are you hearing the hissing through headphone monitoring at this point? Or only when you turn up the volume of the recorded tracks?
 
Yeah, the reason I ithink it's important to know what "low volume" means to the OP is because he's not saying he gets the hiss at low volumes, he's saying
I have to crank up my preamp to componsate for the low volume which ends up introducing a lot of noise!
Click to expand...
....so, I'm thinking that he might not have to crank up his pre-amp. What he considers "low volume" might be the proper recording level and cranking the pre-amp might not be necessary.
 
On my interface the gain knobs go from 7 o'clock to 5 o'clock. 7 is zero, 5 is 100% gain. At about 3 o'clock I begin to hear gain hiss.

I take my gain knob right up to the point of hiss, and back it down a scoche so I hear no gain noise, and then I adjust the fader accordingly. Try that.
 
Muddy T-Bone said:
On my interface the gain knobs go from 7 o'clock to 5 o'clock. 7 is zero, 5 is 100% gain. At about 3 o'clock I begin to hear gain hiss.

I take my gain knob right up to the point of hiss, and back it down a scoche so I hear no gain noise, and then I adjust the fader accordingly. Try that.
Click to expand...

I hope I am not out of turn here, but I noticed this in the mix fest, if your sound comes in low (within reason), then when you do the mix, there are ways to boost it for the mix or turn down the other tracks and increase the volume of the whole mix. But what you don't want is the hiss in the mix.

So to me, better to record too low and work from there than too hot and it is messed up. Within reason, a low recording can work if it is clean. IMO, but as a warning, I too am learning, so there a plenty of others here who are much more experienced.
 
To the OP,
can you be certain that the hiss is from the preamp? Is the room that hisses?
The most common culprit is the computer.
 
There's almost no such thing as "too low" when recording in digital. If you're averaging around -18db and peaking at about -10db, that's not too low, that's proper levels. It's totally normal to have to turn up your monitors during the tracking and mixing stages. I wouldn't touch the master fader, just turn up the moitors and keepo your levels "low", which is actually "normal".
 
Steenamaroo said:
To the OP,
can you be certain that the hiss is from the preamp? Is the room that hisses?
The most common culprit is the computer.
Click to expand...
This is the first thing I thought of, also an e609 would not be my choice for fingerpicking, I have one and I always thought it was for high volume micing like amps and drums.
 
RAMI said:
There's almost no such thing as "too low" when recording in digital. If you're averaging around -18db and peaking at about -10db, that's not too low, that's proper levels. It's totally normal to have to turn up your monitors during the tracking and mixing stages. I wouldn't touch the master fader, just turn up the moitors and keepo your levels "low", which is actually "normal".
Click to expand...

Exactly.
^^^^^^^^^^^^
 
afrothunder89 said:
I got a modded golden age projects pre-73. I'm also using the preamp in my Fireface UCX.

Microphones are Sennheiser e609 and Josephson e22s.

I'm having this issue with both preamps. I'm convinced that something isn't right, but I have no idea why or how. It is very frustrating because I believe that I should be getting much better results with this equipment.
Click to expand...

What is not right is the choice of microphone, the e22 is designed for percussion and the e609 is designed for guitar amps. Both mics have resistance to loud volume where you need a sensitive condenser mic with more gain. Then the Pre-73 will work fine.

Alan.
 
When the signal hits the digital meters in your daw, i would try to keep the dry signal peaking at around -12dbFS.
 
Hmmm....Looks like we lost the OP. I guess we asked too many questions. Next time we need to be more Googly. :)
 
Hey! I'm still around. You folks are helping out immensely, thank you so very much.

What is not right is the choice of microphone, the e22 is designed for percussion and the e609 is designed for guitar amps. Both mics have resistance to loud volume where you need a sensitive condenser mic with more gain. Then the Pre-73 will work fine.

Alan.
Click to expand...

Alan, I think you may be onto something here (as all of you are). Are condenser mics more likely to need gain but produce less noise? Am I wrong in this assessment? And what would you recommend?
 
I think that all of the discussion re: recording levels is off base. I mean, it's good general practice, but I don't see how it helps this particular OP. If the signal/noise ratio is unacceptable going into the recorder, it really doesn't matter what level you're recording at. At some point you have to turn it up to get an acceptable listening level. No matter when or where you do this after it's recorded, you'll be turning up the noise also.

Always shoot to get all the voltage you need as soon as possible in the chain to avoid amplifying the noise added in later stages. That means first try to increase the volume of the source. If you can't or (as in this case) are not willing to make the source louder, then the next stage is the microphone. Choose a more sensitive mic. If you can't, or are not willing to do this, then you increase preamp gain.

Yes, proper recording levels and headroom can be important, but a 50db s/n ratio is the same whether you record at 0dbfs, or -20.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top