Help with home recording levels.

[Al Acuff]

Originally Posted by Seriesnuns

I play unplugged acoustic into either a shure sm58 or AT650 with an art tube mix. I’ve been going back and forth between GarageBand and audacity.

I place my mic 4-6 “ from the 10th fret and I can’t get decent sound levels that are quality when I record through the programs.

How should the trim, channel level, and main mix level be set at?

I would like to hear soft notes and hard strums all clearly. I’m barely -14 at the meter source bar.

I’m also getting a ton of background noise..is this because my mic is too close to the mixer?

Thanks anyone!

Your ART Tubemix looks like it's a starved plate tube preamp design and that's poor engineering. It is not running the tubes the way they were designed to run. ART can advertise it as having tube preamps but believe me it's nothing like a DW Fearn tube preamp. Have you tried recording without your ART? Can you go straight into your interface?

If you are recording at 24 bits then you want your DAW meters in the -12 to -18 dbfs range? After you have mixed then you'll apply a brickwall mastering limiter to raise the gain.

[Seriesnuns]

Hey all thanks everyone for the input.

I’ve had an art pre amp that had good tube warmth. Hence the investment.

Here’s a little clip so you can hear the noise….

https://on.soundcloud.com/wj6xjbbKQkApka9Y7


I’m almost at the point of talking to art…

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by Seriesnuns

Hey all thanks everyone for the input.

I’ve had an art pre amp that had good tube warmth. Hence the investment.

Here’s a little clip so you can hear the noise….

https://on.soundcloud.com/wj6xjbbKQkApka9Y7


I’m almost at the point of talking to art…

I hear most clearly at 17 to 18 seconds in a hiss. Most likely self noise occuring some place or places in your gear.

[TBman]

Originally Posted by Seriesnuns

Hey all thanks everyone for the input.

I’ve had an art pre amp that had good tube warmth. Hence the investment.

Here’s a little clip so you can hear the noise….

https://on.soundcloud.com/wj6xjbbKQkApka9Y7


I’m almost at the point of talking to art…

Do you have Izotope's RX Elements? Their noise reduction would get rid of the hiss for you, but it's better to find the source and remove/reduce it if you can.

[jim1960]

Originally Posted by Seriesnuns

Here’s a little clip so you can hear the noise….

I've never come across that kind of noise before. It's definitely not background noise. That noise sounds like it's oscillating which would point to something being amiss in the electronics somewhere.

[Seriesnuns]

Jeez 5G. Maybe I’ll try everything in airplane mode.

[Joseph Hanna]

Is this track processed with something? I hear more weirdness than unmanageable room or noise floor problems. I'm with Jim. As is it doesn't appear to be a problem we've here to fore tried to address in this thread.

[Seriesnuns]

It isn’t processed with much besides the GarageBand setting of Acoustic nice room. I think it auto adds compressor

I do notice I can use different eq setting and it does get quiet but I also loose volume and tone…

I had the same issue on audacity with no eq.

[keith.rogers]

I suggest recording using Audacity which will allow saving with no processing. It’s quite possible GB has applied compression and normalized “nothing” which can be quite noisy.

Diagnosing noise starts by just testing your mixer interface with everything turned down all the way. Set the mains to “0” and record again. Bring up the fader to 0 (12:00) and again, and finally add in the trim/gain setting you’ll be using. When the noise jumps you will have an idea on what component or stage is where it’s coming from.

[rick-slo]

Unlikely to be a processing issue however try mic'ing and recording a quiet room with your gear setup. Use the same gain settings you did when you recorded the guitar. Do no processing of the raw recording. Listen back. Any noise similar to earlier?

[Seriesnuns]

Well I may have found an issue..the 48v phantom power was on.

When I turned it off I eliminated enough noise to make myself happy.

https://on.soundcloud.com/PAtKki39Xqox6foa6


There is still some slight noise but it’s down 80 percent or more from before.

Thank you everyone, I’m way more in tune with recording!

[rick-slo]

Dynamic mikes should ignore the phantom power. Maybe some amplifier issue, at least or more so when phantom on but not connected to a condenser mike.

[Rudy4]

Originally Posted by Seriesnuns

Well I may have found an issue..the 48v phantom power was on.

When I turned it off I eliminated enough noise to make myself happy.

https://on.soundcloud.com/PAtKki39Xqox6foa6


There is still some slight noise but it’s down 80 percent or more from before.

Thank you everyone, I’m way more in tune with recording!

Interesting. I know absolutely that some equipment can cause audible noise problems if the phantom power circuit is not designed correctly.

I had a very high pitched background noise in recorded tracks when using the phantom power with a Zoom R24 that I purchased when they were first released. Zoom informed me that it was a known problem and they repaired the unit and sent it back to me. It totally eliminated the problem.

[Seriesnuns]

Hey All!

I think progressing pretty well. I’ve even loaded up on foam sound proofing the room. I will I notice the most when I play through my studio monitor.

https://on.soundcloud.com/apQnbHau25JVwTBp6

https://on.soundcloud.com/mKh1ykZvNNXBgtkH9

[jim1960]

Originally Posted by Seriesnuns

Hey All!

I think progressing pretty well. I’ve even loaded up on foam sound proofing the room. I will I notice the most when I play through my studio monitor.

https://on.soundcloud.com/apQnbHau25JVwTBp6

https://on.soundcloud.com/mKh1ykZvNNXBgtkH9

Foam doesn't sound proof a room. Foam will attenuate some of the higher frequencies but that's all it does. Also, the goal isn't to sound proof a room. That's a very expensive endeavor that requires building a room inside the room that is decoupled from the house. What you want to do is control problematic frequencies. If your room is on the smaller side, the biggest problem is always going to be the build up of low frequencies. To control those, you need bass traps, not foam.