I have a question about plugins and high gain *amp sims*

[omni 1]

Why is it every time I use a high gain setting on an amp sim and use a noise gate, I can still hear the hiss while playing as well. It's not as noticeable but it's there. Any recommendations how to get rid of it? It sounds like a crackling. It happens with every amp sim and every interface and guitar. Is it just inherent to using an amp sim?

[beaubrummels]

Noise gates don't do anything about hiss while playing. They just shut off the sound when you are not playing.

[jeremy]

i dont use amp sims so i cant help, but beau is right about the noise gates. they mute the signal when you arent playing and do basically nothing when you are

[Coma]

What the others said. With the added caveat that it's not just you. I've used a number of sims over the years and they were all exceptionally noisy with high gain setups. The only solution is to try to find the sweet spot where the gate clamps down quickly without cutting off sustain.

[zionstrat]

Hmmm. Hiss and crackling are really two different things...

Real hiss is simply the noise of the signal chain itself... The signal is usually many times the value of the hiss so the hiss is masked when the signal is high and the noise gate is supposed to shut down when the signal is low.

It takes a lot of fussing, but especially with high gain, you should be able to completely overcome the hiss.. where are you putting the noise gate in the signal chain?

There are times where low gain signals do not overcome hiss with unusual setups (piezos on low output instruments like zithers come to mind). A well-tuned parametric can often be the answer, sometimes in conjunction with a noise gate.

Crackle on the other hand usually indicates input overload and will vary depending on the signal... This is an entirely different issue from hiss and a noise gate isn't the right solution. Input crackle s fixed by correctly matching outputs to inputs.

Crackling can also be related to digital challenges including buffering etc so you have to spend a little bit of time figuring out how it's getting in there in the first place and I'm not including it in this discussion because it's really not an audio issue.

But telling them apart is easy. Hiss is consistent regardless of the signal. Input crackling will track directly with the signal level.

[beaubrummels]

For the crackling, I would expect either you've got a +4 / -10 mismatch on your digital inputs, or you have a digital clock synch problem between your I/O and your computer. If you're not using a computer, I'd need to know the full signal chain to figure out what it might be.

[DankStar]

when I tried to use that free NAM thing I got lots of crackling, a sign that my older PC couldn't really handle it. I messed with the buffering and all that crap but couldn't seem to get it to go away.

[beaubrummels]

Descriptions sounds like both your I/O and your computer are trying to be the clock master and in conflict with one another.