Podcasting in Ableton (Hissing issue)

[nasher21]

First time on KVR and hope this is in the right place.

In the last 2 years I’ve been doing a podcast and it’s been a lot of fun learning the ins and outs of creating quality audio. I started with my phone and Audacity and I’ve progressed to now using a Shure SM58 dynamic mic and decent headphones. I was still using Audacity up until recently as I felt it did the job but I’ve decided I really want more control with how the spoken work mix sounds.

I do a bit of music production with Ableton Live 11 so I figured I’d start at least doing my editing/mixing in there as it will be non-destructive and being able to use EQ and compressor in a much more effective way was appealing. I still did the recording in Audacity. Well I exported my first show from Ableton and I’m really happy with the chain I used with EQ, compression, Gate for noise removal and a limiter on the master but I have one big issue. I couldn’t pick it up on my headphones but when I played it on speakers like my laptop or the car stereo, I could hear this hissing sound that seemed to be under/at the start and end of each word.

I guess my first question is: What is best to get that hiss off?

Secondly: There was no way for me to tell if that was there as I couldn’t hear it when monitoring and editing through my headphones. What is the best way to ensure something sounds good across all devices?

Thirdly: It seems really hard to find good tutorials on podcasting in Ableton. Would anyone be able to recommend me something or at very least something that is really good for another DAW but can be applied to Ableton?

Thanks is advance for any advice.

[HOTF]

WHat audio interface are you using ?

[Raketenbauer]

Without hearing the audio it's hard to tell, but what you're hearing could be the room or background noise before it got chopped away by the gate.

In order to hear the podcast on your car stereo you probably sent the audio through your effect chain and encoded the file, e. g. with an MP3 encoder. Maybe this process emphasized the hiss.

[osiris]

If you're using Audacity it has a great Noise Removal Effect. I used to do this with old vinyl recordings. Just select the silence at the start of your track, right up to the point of the first word, it should remove it. It could also be ambient electrical noise from the mic, the a.c., even a ceiling fan.

[nasher21]

WHat audio interface are you using ?

Hi, I am using a Scarlett 2i2 with Shure SM58 mic

[nasher21]

Without hearing the audio it's hard to tell, but what you're hearing could be the room or background noise before it got chopped away by the gate.

In order to hear the podcast on your car stereo you probably sent the audio through your effect chain and encoded the file, e. g. with an MP3 encoder. Maybe this process emphasized the hiss.

Thanks for your reply, it turns out this is most likely the case. I ripped an audio file without noise gate and low and behold the hiss is constant throughout the track. I'm going to try some gain staging with my next recording and make sure the signal is nice and clean next time. Still need to play around with EQ to try and find the right sound for the voice as well.

[Raketenbauer]

A noise gate is a quite drastic effect on speech because a gate drops the signal to digital silence. You could try an expander, it only drops the signal by a specified amount. The attack and release times are also important because these specify how quickly the gate/expander opens and closes.

Furthermore the order of the dynamic processors in your effect chain does matter. E. g. it‘s better to put the gate/expander before the compressor because it makes no sense that the compressor works on a signal that will later be cut off by the gate.

[nasher21]

A noise gate is a quite drastic effect on speech because a gate drops the signal to digital silence. You could try an expander, it only drops the signal by a specified amount. The attack and release times are also important because these specify how quickly the gate/expander opens and closes.

Furthermore the order of the dynamic processors in your effect chain does matter. E. g. it‘s better to put the gate/expander before the compressor because it makes no sense that the compressor works on a signal that will later be cut off by the gate.

Would the closest thing in Ableton be the multiband dynamics? Might have to watch a tutorial on it.

[Raketenbauer]

Would the closest thing in Ableton be the multiband dynamics? Might have to watch a tutorial on it.

Sorry, I don‘t know Ableton but some multiband units can indeed work as an expander. Maybe ask around in an Ableton forum.

To be clear, the best case is when you have a recording that doesn‘t need any gate or expander. Try to dampen your room, minimize background noise and maybe get a little closer to your mic.

FYI, FabFilter has an excellent gate/expander with a great GUI but it‘s quite expensive: https://www.fabfilter.com/products/pro- ... er-plug-in

On the FabFilter site is a tutorial video for Pro-G by Dan Worrall, maybe it gives you some ideas.

[osiris]

I just wanted to let you know I had the same issue recording vinyl on Audacity and it turned out to be the computer fan.

[nasher21]

Would the closest thing in Ableton be the multiband dynamics? Might have to watch a tutorial on it.

Sorry, I don‘t know Ableton but some multiband units can indeed work as an expander. Maybe ask around in an Ableton forum.

To be clear, the best case is when you have a recording that doesn‘t need any gate or expander. Try to dampen your room, minimize background noise and maybe get a little closer to your mic.

FYI, FabFilter has an excellent gate/expander with a great GUI but it‘s quite expensive: https://www.fabfilter.com/products/pro- ... er-plug-in

On the FabFilter site is a tutorial video for Pro-G by Dan Worrall, maybe it gives you some ideas.

Yeah good point, this last week has been a good lesson for me in getting a good clean recording at the source. I'll check out that Fab Filter tutorial thanks!

[Raketenbauer]

Regarding EQ settings, it's usually good practice to use a low-cut filter first in your effect chain. This filter gets rid of any unwanted low frequencies like rumbling caused by the mic stand.

Be aware of the proximity effect of your mic, the closer the distance to the mic the more bass boost you'll get. Maybe that's what you want, but maybe it's a little bit too much and you'll need to attenuate bass frequencies to get a clearer voice.

A general advice for EQ on voice recordings is to use the EQ for cutting away frequencies, not for boosting. Boosting can sound artificial.

[osiris]

I don't want to presume you don't know what you're doing but are you recording this into Audacity? Because that noise thing I got when recording vinyl was a result of Audacity also having the system mic on, so general computer fan noise was being fed into what was being recorded. Thought I'd throw that in here. Stopped when I turned off the mic function in Audacity.