This is something that's been troubling me for years. I keep putting off raising it...
I do mixing of live tracked recordings. Most of the time, "silence" from the audio parts (rather than "in the box" MIDI synth parts) seems to track at ridiculously high levels, like -50dB - i.e. nearly audible. Couple this with a lot of the time getting signal levels of below -12dB, signal to noise is pretty poor. I end up using Audacity to clean things up. Whilst it's not bad, sometimes the signal is so poor there's little "nice sound" left.
What I'm wondering is why? I do sometimes get really nice clean parts - they still have audio noise but it's down around -90dB - so I know it's possible. I'm also not counting the "open mic" audio parts - only stuff I'd expect to be direct input into the A/D converter. I shall risk ire and point a finger by saying most of the problem parts come from guitar and bass players - but it's not exclusive, I occasionally get analogue synth parts with high noise too.
I do no recording myself, so I don't know what the possible issues are. I'm really looking for any guidance I could pass on...
Noise in recordings around -50dB
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- KVRAF
- 7412 posts since 8 Feb, 2003 from London, UK
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- addled muppet weed
- 111294 posts since 26 Jan, 2003 from through the looking glass
without being on site to check, usual suspects gain staging issues or shite equipment.
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- KVRAF
- Topic Starter
- 7412 posts since 8 Feb, 2003 from London, UK
I guess I need to google around for lists of things to check when recordings are noisy... (Ideally I'll find a nice list I can throw at people 
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- addled muppet weed
- 111294 posts since 26 Jan, 2003 from through the looking glass
well the problem is, that lost will be different for each instrument and indeed player.
eg in studios, some drummers ive needed to add gain on the mics to get a good signal, others hit so hard ive had to pull mics away a little.
guitars, different electronics ie single coil vs humbuckers produce their own different signals requiring different gain thats before we even talk fx and amps.
there is no one size fits all.
it's one reason i gave up mixing stuff i didn't record or at least oversee the recording, too much time trying to get one take done. let alone getting one with a decent snr from some people.
tell each one to look up gain staging for their particular set up. that's as one stop as i can make it.
if that doesnt help, then it is most likely gear issues or user errors not following the gain staging
eg in studios, some drummers ive needed to add gain on the mics to get a good signal, others hit so hard ive had to pull mics away a little.
guitars, different electronics ie single coil vs humbuckers produce their own different signals requiring different gain thats before we even talk fx and amps.
there is no one size fits all.
it's one reason i gave up mixing stuff i didn't record or at least oversee the recording, too much time trying to get one take done. let alone getting one with a decent snr from some people.
tell each one to look up gain staging for their particular set up. that's as one stop as i can make it.
if that doesnt help, then it is most likely gear issues or user errors not following the gain staging