Room Noise

TonyBar3

TonyBar3

New member
I record with nothing but a mic and a Tascam Portastudio right onto tape. Whenever I record I get the "room noise". Stuff that you don't hear until you listen to a recorded piece. On all of the samples I hear here, it's completely dead, like it should be, prior to any music being played. And, it also sounds a little noisy while I'm playing. Not so on here. How do I get rid of that?

I know a lot of the people that post stuff here are direct into a computer, no micing, and I'm sure that has something to do with it, but there has to be a way to cut that noise out.
 
Re: Room Noise

Bumpity-bump-bump. I need answers folks. I'm going on vacation to the states and I would rather buy stuff there.
 
Re: Room Noise

Define "room noise"... the room itself doesn´t make noise...is it AC hum, RFI buzz, or ambient noise from outside, or....???

That will make a huge difference in what measures to take, soundproofing the room for example won´t do you any good if your problem is 60 cycle hum...
 
Re: Room Noise

Zerberus said:
Define "room noise"... the room itself doesn´t make noise...
Click to expand...

Yes it does.

Stand in a room & just listen for about 5-10 minutes without making a sound.

You'll hear ALL kinds of stuff. Traffic from outside. Maybe the neighbours. Creaks & cracks from the building settling. HVAC (heating & cooling) noise from fans, duct work, gas or hot water moving through the radiators, someone flushing the can on the other side of the building...

This is ALL entirely subjective, but if the microphone is too far from the source, the micamp gain is too high or both you'll drag out room noise.

That may, or may not be a good thing.

For drums, nobody cares & room tone is generally good.

On vocals, shakers, acoustic guitar & other "soft" sources it's usually pretty bad.

If it's only bugging you at the head & tail of the song it can be edited out easily enough. On analog I'd use a razor blade & leader tape, on digital select the offending region and 'mute' it out.

It can also be done in mixing with fader moves or automation.

But yeah...room noise DOES exist. Sometimes it's called "room tone". Regardless, it's the natural sound of the room with nothing going on inside it.

Best,
 
Re: Room Noise

J Moose said:
Yes it does.

Stand in a room & just listen for about 5-10 minutes without making a sound.

You'll hear ALL kinds of stuff. Traffic from outside. Maybe the neighbours. Creaks & cracks from the building settling. HVAC (heating & cooling) noise from fans, duct work, gas or hot water moving through the radiators, someone flushing the can on the other side of the building...
Click to expand...

This is why I asked... this is exactly the kind of noise you can soundproof against for the most part, what I nonchalantly referred to as "ambient from the outside".... the only one of these that I have a problem with for example is the structure, and that´s not something that will usually cause huge problems on tape. Internally noisy PCs are a much greater problem for most home studios I personally know (though not an issue here) ;)

But I agree more or less with everything you said, I think I just had a not so effective way of communicating that in my first post...
 
Re: Room Noise

It's ambient room noise. I've tried foaming the room and that didn't seem to help. I think that is sound deadening though, and not sound proofing. How much will a noise gate do at the input to the tascam
 
Re: Room Noise

I'm assuming you're talking about recording electric guitar here, correct me if I'm wrong. There are a million factors to consider when it comes to noise in recordings, but for electric gtr. these are the first two that come to mind: What are the details of your microphone placement (distance from source, walls, height above floor) and what exactly are you using (dynamic, stereo pair condensers...?) Also are you using too much compression? (...and no I don't mean to sound patronizing, but I've seen someone do this before and then wonder why the A/C was all over the mix...:smack: )

If all else fails, here's something I learned recording a classical string quartet that served me well: as was mentioned earlier in the thread, learn to listen to the room. When you record someting as dynamic as a string quartet you really hear the room and those bizarre things like heaters, water pipes, and creaky floors. One thing to try is put on some headphones when the room is quiet, and just walk your mic around the room. Point it every which way at every possible height and angle, and just listen to the noise and how it changes. In the case of the aforementioned string quartet I discovered there was a furnace and some pipes on the other side of the wall behind the players. By simply flipping the layout of the room so the quartet was beside the outside facing wall(though itwas an inconvenient layout) the noise got down to acceptable levels. Hope that helps a bit, though there is a downside: now I walk into rooms and all I hear is toilets flushing, computers rattling, and people on the floor above walking around...:censored:
 
Re: Room Noise

The oil burner/heater in my house is soo frikken loud, I must turn it off every time I record.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top