getting rid of that hiss...while recording

[BassAddict04]

how do you get rid of those hisses? that are always clearly there when you listen to music with headphones.


I have beeen recording for a while now and that didnt seem to bother me too mcuh, but now I need to take it to the next level and clean it up a bit.

thanks

[Aus_rock_god]

Depends on where it's coming from.

Sometimes it's as simple as turning the TV in the loungeroom off. Othertimes it's because you have one too many things plugged into your powerboard. Most of the time it's your equiptment or soundcard.

If you can't find the source of the problem, eq it out.

[Motleyguy]

or use an expander... but definitely try to find the source.

[pikester]

Record your signals as Hot (loud) as possible without clipping.

[Seafroggys]

Record your signals as Hot (loud) as possible without clipping.

BAD!

If there's hiss somewhere, it'll just get louder when you do that. If you are thinking its noise floor, think again...you won't even hear it in 24 bit...hell, you won't even hear it in 16 bit for that matter.

[pikester]

Well, it's generally a good idea to use as much of your bit depth as possible.

[Seafroggys]

Well, it's generally a good idea to use as much of your bit depth as possible.

This is also false, a misnomer from the 80s in the days of 16 bit and bad converters.

Headroom is good. In 24 bit mode, even if you only peak at -20, that still gives you over 100 dB of dynamic range, which is more than you'll ever get with 16 bit, and that's if you are lucky enough to peak right at 0 dB.

There's plenty of articles on gain structure over on the Homerecording.com BBS, they can explain it better.

In a nutshell, though, its a technical mentality from the old days of digital and (even though not as much) analog. We have moved on...

[Aaron]

You can remove noise from basic recordings pretty easily using a variety of DAWs etc.

[Seafroggys]

Yeah, Audacity's tape hiss removal works wonders, actually. I used it to clean up a few recordings that I got, they virtually disappeared.

[Aaron]

It's fantastic. I use it if I think something intentional has been mixed too high and don't have the project file still as well.

[BassAddict04]

thanks everyone for the replys, the problem was the computer screen... haha so that sucks.

but the audacity tape thing works great, tehanks!

[Seafroggys]

yeah electronics can really make things freaky. When I ran my space heater, since it was running on the same extension cord as my amp, the amp buzzed when it was on.