Thread Buzzing sounds and unwanted noise? How do I KILL them?

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patgelose1

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1 Posted on 01/25/2009 at 20:10:04

I have a couple of buzzing problems/

1. My acoustic/electric guitar buzzes alot (the preamp?)
2. My condenser mic buzzes if the cord isn't rigged up the right way or if I hold on to the metal connector

BIGGEST PROBLEM

3. My Apple PowerMac G4 makes noise, might be the CPU, I'm not sure but when I turn the high frequencies up on the EQ of the track, the computer drowns out the wanted recorded sound.

ANY SUGGESTIONS? THANKS.

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Anonymous

2 Posted on 01/30/2009 at 17:06:27

Your buzzing problem on your microphone looks like a earth connection default. Are your sure you pre / mixing desk / audio interface is correctly connected to earth and that the shield in the cable is correctly wired and not severed ?

For you electric guitars hum and buzz can be reduced a lot with internal shielding (using adhesive copper sheets) connected to cable shield (jack sleeve) and to the bridge (to avoid buzzing when you touch strings, bridge or tuning mechanics).

For you apple powermac G4 I'm not sure to understand your problem. The hardware himself is making noise ??

patgelose1

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3 Posted on 01/31/2009 at 19:50:33

Yes. Have you ever heard an old Windows 98 PC running? It is kind of like if you took the sound of a car engine and transformed the frequency to 100x higher. It is really high pitched so it doesn't bother you, you hardly notice. But when I record, my condenser mic picks it up really good and I simply cannot tolerate a extremely high frequency in my vocal tracks. The sound of dead air is bad enough.

As for my other problems, my cords were just bad. But the biggest problem still remains. ANy suggestions.

P.S.
(I was thinking, maybe some sort of denoiser plug-in)
I use Logic Express 7 and there is a factory denoiser plug-in but it is really confusing and hard to use.

Anonymous

4 Posted on 02/01/2009 at 03:28:06

If the hardware himself is producing noise, there is only a few solutions :

- take it to a different room than the condenser mic. Use long cables from mouse, keyboard, screen and audio interface.

- build a small dampened enclosure for it.

- change hardware.

- try to modify fans operating voltage inside the powermac, as this high pitched noise could be caused by fans at a higher speed than necessary. But this could be long and very boring.

If you want to use a denoiser most of them work by taking a "snapshot" of the noise to eliminate. Begin your recording by a few seconds of silence with just you powermac noise, then use this beginning sequence to "train" the denoiser on the unwanted signal shape.

But the best solution is obviously to kill this noise before you record.

patgelose1

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5 Posted on 02/01/2009 at 08:04:26

Well, thank you for the options. I figured that the best way is to put the PowerMac in another room than the studio but where the hell do I find 25 foot extension cords for the keyboard, monitor, and audio interface? (mouse plugs into keyboard) I think that is a little impossible.

Also, do you know if you CAN slow down the fan or is that just a blind suggestion? If so, how?

I appreciate your help very much. Thank you.

Anonymous

6 Posted on 02/05/2009 at 01:35:55

Quote: Also, do you know if you CAN slow down the fan or is that just a blind suggestion? If so, how?

Yes, you can do this, either by using something like a fan mate from zalmann (there are tons of products like this in computer stores) :

or by wiring directly the fan to a lower voltage DC source. The voltage in ATX type PC power supply is color coded (black = 0V / ground, brown = +3.3V, red = +5V, yellow = +12V, white = -5V, blue = -12V), I don't know if it's the same for a powermac G4 power supply.

Either solution require that you go inside the powermac and do some re-wiring.

A third solution could be to change the fans for less noisy models (there are also tons of them in every standardized sizes and prices).

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