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Old 09-16-2020, 06:47 PM
mikerofone mikerofone is offline
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Default Fan noise from my Macbook Pro

Anyone else record with a Macbook Pro? The trouble I've been having is that sensitive condenser mics pick up the noise from the fan in my laptop. Because it's just me doing home recording, I have to be within reach of my laptop when I use my mics to record.

Does anyone know if there is a way to temporarily disable or turn off the fan in a laptop?
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Old 09-16-2020, 07:00 PM
leew3 leew3 is offline
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You might try a different mic that has a tighter pattern and so could reject the noise a bit better. you don't want to disable the fan-especially while doing labor intensive work like recording.
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Old 09-16-2020, 07:05 PM
Aspiring Aspiring is offline
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I have a similar issue with my laptop. I have a cardioid pattern in the large diaphragm. I set my laptop up in front of me with the mic at 45 degrees to the laptop and use a bluetooth remote foot controller to stop and start the recording.

The mic picks up every other slight bit of hvac noise in my house but doesn't pick up the laptop fan that is 4 ft away.

When I had it facing toward me parallel to the laptop it picked up mass fan noise which I'm guessing was the reflection off the nearby wall coming in the back of the mic.
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Old 09-16-2020, 07:22 PM
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Doug Young Doug Young is offline
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Do you have to be right by the laptop? What DAW are you using? I have my Mac (not laptop) in a different room, but also use Logic's remote on my phone to start and stop recording just as a convenience so I don't have to be sitting at the keyboard. You can always start the recording, walk across the room or whereever to get to your mics and play - you just have some extra time on the recording that you can always trim off later.
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Old 09-16-2020, 07:40 PM
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keith.rogers keith.rogers is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mikerofone View Post
Anyone else record with a Macbook Pro? The trouble I've been having is that sensitive condenser mics pick up the noise from the fan in my laptop. Because it's just me doing home recording, I have to be within reach of my laptop when I use my mics to record.

Does anyone know if there is a way to temporarily disable or turn off the fan in a laptop?
You have to keep it cool, so shut down absolutely every app you're not using, turn off WiFi, backups, anything else. Freeze any already recorded tracks if you've got FX on them, i.e., so they're not causing a lot of CPU activity when tracking.

Do you have an SSD? Is that an option for your system? I put an SSD in my old 2010 MBP and that cools it down some. (Spinning disk motors generate more heat than memory.) If that's not an option, try an external SSD for your projects, so the media files are being written there, as that's where most of the disk activity is when tracking. (Well, I'd always put my projects on external drives, for starters, and SSDs are relatively cheap, or were, last I checked.)

As suggested, mic position is key. Cardioid pattern should be set so the back of the mic is aimed at your worst noise source. (Hyper/super-cardioid and figure-of-8 or omni are not your friends in most home studios unless you can isolate noise sources.)
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Old 09-16-2020, 07:43 PM
ac ac is offline
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My Macbook Pro is 8 years old works and looks perfect. No moving parts other than the keyboard and fans and hinge.

I just yesterday replaced one of the two fans which had slowly been increasing in noise over the last 3-4 years until it was actually rattling. It was just a noticeable "air" flow sound at first for a few years and only in the last months became really noisy.

New fan and sudden lovely silence. Can't believe I didn't do it earlier.

Yes, you can turn off the fans, but you then risk cooking a number of things permanently, and you'll have to hunt down the Terminal command to do that.

SMCfanControl, OTOH, is free and works great, but it's main purpose is to allow you to increase speed. That's what I needed since my fan was failing.

I used SMC the last couple months as at a certain RPM and my fan was quieter--but not quiet. Slow rpm, and the noise increased.

Replaced the fan and now utter silence.

iFixit carries fans for every model, I think, with tools and instructions if needed (NEEDED.)
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Old 09-16-2020, 08:21 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mikerofone View Post
Anyone else record with a Macbook Pro? The trouble I've been having is that sensitive condenser mics pick up the noise from the fan in my laptop. Because it's just me doing home recording, I have to be within reach of my laptop when I use my mics to record.

Does anyone know if there is a way to temporarily disable or turn off the fan in a laptop?

Hi mike…

Another remote option or two, move well away from the computer, and use a wireless mouse to start/stop recordings.

You could even use an extension screen and keep a wireless mouse in play. That way the computer could even set on the other side of a door/wall…no noise in the room with you.

In fact, an iPad can serve as a wireless extension screen to a Mac. It's called 'Sidecar'.

Doug Young's suggestion is excellent too.

Something else I have always done to take pressure off the CPU is record files to an external hard drive (rather on the same computer drive which is operating the system, and running programs).

My studio computer back in the day was only used to run the recording program and act as a host. All other programs were never in operation while the computer was recording. And I always made sure nothing was competing with the main computer. We even signed off-line when doing major projects. Just thoughts…



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Old 09-17-2020, 03:28 AM
63telemaster 63telemaster is offline
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Reaper has this and presume other DAWs would have something similar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEY9XIYJtGg

Haven't tried it properly so don't know how effective it is at noise reduction or how it might affect your recorded sound.
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Old 09-17-2020, 06:29 AM
Rudy4 Rudy4 is offline
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Not much help for laptop use, but when I recorded to my PC I ended up putting adding a "poke through" in the wall behind my computer desk and placing the actual PC on the other side of the wall.

It was such a revelation how much we put up with to use a computer. It made doing anything on the PC enjoyable.

I switched to using A Zoom R24 for audio capture because it's totally noiseless and I can record anywhere easily. I still do editing on a PC, but fan noise isn't an issue if it's not being recorded.
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Old 09-18-2020, 09:13 AM
Brent Hahn Brent Hahn is offline
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I don't use my MacBook to record. But since I maxed out the RAM in it, the fan kicks on far less frequently. Might be worth looking into.
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Old 09-19-2020, 11:15 PM
robj144 robj144 is offline
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Why do you have to be in reach? You can always count in or just edit out space at the beginning?
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Old 09-20-2020, 01:42 AM
phcorrigan phcorrigan is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Doug Young View Post
I...use Logic's remote on my phone to start and stop recording just as a convenience so I don't have to be sitting at the keyboard.
I use Studio One's remote on a tablet mounted to one of my mic stands.

There are also universal remote apps that will work with many or most DAWs.
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