Noise: Our Enemy… Sometimes Our Friend. (Frenemy?)

Who doesn’t like a little noise in their music every now and then? I know I sure do, when used in the right way. What most of us don’t like, however, is noise messing up our perfectly good music in the wrong place.

Hi, this is Rich from North Carolina, and this time I’m going to talk about controlling noise so that it doesn’t get the better of your recordings.

You Can’t Escape It

Noise is everywhere, and it surrounds us all the time. Even if you go into the quietest of all quiet rooms, you will still hear the noises of your body (or maybe those of the person next to you!)

We want to reduce as much of the noise surrounding us as we can so it doesn’t impact our music negatively. Then later on, if we want to add noise, we can add it whenever or wherever we want.

There are two kinds of noise we’re trying to eliminate:

1. Acoustic Noise
2. Electrical Noise

Reducing Acoustic Noise

Acoustic noise comes from the common (and sometimes uncommon) sounds that surround us: computers, air conditioners, fans, appliances, motors, televisions, friends, relatives, and even pets.

So how do we get rid of all of this noise?

1. Listen carefully to the room you want to use. How silent is it really? You’re trying to establish what the silence or room tone of the space is.
2. Move away from noise sources. That computer starts to sound like a jet engine in a quiet room. Are the windows letting in a lot of noise? Is there a better space you can use?
3. Create an isolated space for recording. I like to use my clothes closet for voice-overs, because it’s really quiet, and full of clothes on hangers that are eager to kill any noise in the room. I just hook up a mic to my interface, and hook that up to my laptop, and record what I need to there.
4. Turn off sources of noise such as air conditioning, fans, heating (of all kinds– radiators can make random pinging noises, too!), television, and appliances.

Acoustic noise is everywhere, so it’s impossible to get rid of it completely, but you can limit it this way.

But that’s not the only noise you have to deal with.

Reducing Electrical Noise

Electrical noise comes out of every piece of gear you use. It’s noise that comes into your lines, and gets recorded right along with everything else. It can really mess up a recording, and be frustrating to deal with at times.

Almost all gear has a self-noise specification that will tell you just how much noise it generates. Better gear will generally generate less noise.

Here’s how to reduce it:

1. Don’t use so much gear. Use the minimum necessary to get the job done. Every piece you add is going to make it noisier!
2. Shorten the cable runs. The shorter the run, the less noise gets introduced. If you only need six feet of cable, run a six-foot cable. Don’t run a twelve-foot cable.
3. Use balanced cables. Balanced cables are designed to reject noise. Unbalanced cables are not designed to reject noise. So if you have to have an unbalanced line somewhere, convert it to a balanced line as soon as possible with a good direct box.
4. Turn off appliances and dimmer switches. Both dump a lot of noise into your power lines, which gets picked up by your equipment, then it winds up in your recording, and you have a headache on your hands in post. That hum you see at 50/60 Hz is probably coming from a loud power source.
5. Use better gear. This usually works. Do your research before buying. Expensive gear isn’t always better. (It usually is, but it’s no guarantee.)

Avoid Unnecessary Gain Stages

That means leaving your mixer on U and not using it to boost signals. Gain stages add more noise.

If the sound coming in is too quiet, move the mic closer instead.

Generally mic use and placement can fix a lot of gain problems. Use the right mic for the job. Pick a polar pattern on the mic that will reject unwanted sounds, and only pick up the sounds you want to record. Directional microphones can be really useful in this regard.

Don’t Push It Off To Post

It may be tempting to use a filter or some other post-production strategy to reduce a noisy recording, but your best post-processing solution is not to introduce the noise in the first place.

Noise can be great as an effect, or as something to add into a synth, but it’s not so great when you can hear it in an unwanted place.

Control noise. Don’t be controlled by it.

Reflection

I’m not exactly sure how I can demonstrate how to reduce noise in a blog post, since a lot of this is pretty situational, but I can at least go over the points Loudon talked about in the lecture. I hope this helps!