anonymous
12 January 2005
Would it be safe for me to assume that much or most of the noise/hiss that I am getting in my recordings (from amplifiers and what not) will be overpowered by the actual signal in the mixdown and therefore will be masked from hearing? It's registering less than -50dbs (the noise that is). I'm not new to recording (sadly I was burdened with what used to be a Boss Br-8, had to track EVERYTHING seperately but I had a huge margin of error because everything sounded awful no matter what. I've upgraded somewhat and am trying to get the best recordings I can get. Thanks for your time.
Comments
markmisinco wrote: Would it be safe for me to assume that much o
Noise and hiss shouldn't be lumped together as "noise/hiss" if your striving to have a better setup you should isolate each and every nuance in your system and know exactly how much thermal noise is coming from what piece of equipment, what kind of ground loops are being introduced and at what level do they show up after you've done some ground lifts, etc.. etc..
That being said..... when all your attempts to minimize the noise are done.... at that point.... don't worry about it anymore and worry more about the recording.
Noise will certainly be buried for the most part; but different kinds of noise can manifest itself as more objectionable than others. Thermal noise blends nicely with music and gets almost completely lost in the mix.... ground loop hums.... even though most people never bother to notice them.... can sometimes be noticeable in the mix at certain parts in the song... I've heard more than one professionaly mixed song from days past (1950's to 1970's albums) where I picked out what was definately ground loop humming in some of the quiet parts of the song..... and if nobody really ever noticed this much in 30+ years listening to the song, then you got to figure that most people just mentally filter out noise to an extent subconsciously.
-50dB-FS, approximately, is a pretty high noise floor, and I definately think it would be objectionabable at this point even if it got buried in the mix.
If the noise level was at -70dB FS, I would say that should be the absolute minimum level of acceptability... I would not even accept that myself..... but if thats the best you could get with your eqpt I think it would be good.
I'd shoot for a minimum thermal noise level of -85dBFS If you could do that.... If it was me.... I would not even accept this level... but thats because I'm really obsessive compulsive about thermal noise. I'm not happy unless the noise floor does not even register on my meters.
I basically noise gate everything which is what you should probably be doing if your getting that kind of noise level...... but others here will probably tell you that you have to be careful with noise gating depending on what your recording because sometimes the silence can actually be too noticeable and detracts negatively from the song.