# Best way to keep noise floor low?



## jfino (Jun 9, 2018)

Hi Everyone,

Wondering if anyone has any advice for keeping the noise floor on recordings 
low when sampling. 
Specially if you have loads of mics I've noticed noise can build up.

Thanks!

Jimmy


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## Maxime Luft (Jun 9, 2018)

Hi Jimmy, you could take a look at this thread I started a few years ago. You will find lots of informations mainly about pre-amps and also about mics and how to generally speaking minimize the noise floor.

https://vi-control.net/community/th...l-library-pre-amps-asp880-asp800-hv-3d.62213/

The end result will of course depend on your budget, but also on the room and on how well you are going to remove the noise from your recordings (we at organic samples are using Izotope RX 6, lots of people also seem to be more than satisfied with it!).

All the best for your projects


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## Piano Pete (Jun 9, 2018)

+1 for good recording techniques.

+2 for Izotope RX Suite. It has saved my butt on several occasions!


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## jfino (Jun 9, 2018)

Thanks! Ill read the thread!


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## Polkasound (Jun 9, 2018)

If I'm sampling in the winter or summer when my central air is running, I'll process my recorded samples with a touch of Wave X-Noise.


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## jfino (Jun 9, 2018)

Polkasound said:


> If I'm sampling in the winter or summer when my central air is running, I'll process my recorded samples with a touch of Wave X-Noise.


thanks ill look into wave x!


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## Levitanus (Jun 9, 2018)

jfino said:


> thanks ill look into wave x!


don't. Like hit screws by Tor hammer 
Noise reduction anyway is needed. If only You are not recording the Air studio by 40KHz-sensibility microphones 
There is a little bit less expensive, but not too worse solution, that RX: Voxengo Redunoise.


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## wst3 (Jun 10, 2018)

I come from the other camp I'm afraid, and really dislike noise reduction on samples.

I have several NR tools (RX, ERA-D, Sony, Redunoise, unVeil), and use them extensively in other applications - mostly recovery of old tapes and such. But they all leave artifacts, and the build up of the artifacts bothers me much more than a little noise.

When sampling I'd start with the quietest room you can find - always best to start without noise<G>.

Next up, select the most sensitive microphone you can afford - that fits the application. The more signal you send to the preamplifier the less noise in the recording.

Next up, select a preamplifier with a really low noise figure - every preamplifier will add noise (unless you are operating at absolute zero, and that's uncomfortabel).

Finally, choose an A/D converter that can operate at 24 bits, the more bits the less noise (assuming a competently designed converter and especially competently designed analog front end.)

Sadly - but realistically - that gear is expensive, and the increase in price far outstrips the increase in performance, that old 80/20 rule - so it depends on how quiet you need. (From my youth: "how fast do you want to go?" "How much money do you have?" There was a direct correlation!!)

For specific recommendations?

The Neumann TLM-103 is one of the most sensitive microphones out there, for loud sources I know folks that skip the preamplifier entirely.

The Millennia Media preamplifiers are among the best - to my ears. They are quiet and very neutral. Grace comes in a very close second.

Converters? That's a challenge. I find that the converters in my UAD Apollo are sufficient, but I've used better converters - just unable (unwilling?) to spend that much money!!!

And if budget is an issue (and when isn't it?) start with the room and move through the microphone, preamplifier, and converter in that order.

Good luck!


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## Levitanus (Jun 10, 2018)

@wst3, yes, in case of single\movable instruments You're absolutely right. But even if we take not so rare example as organ, we have very big noise from the compressor, and not all rooms with organs are noise-free. With halls for orchestral recording it's a little bit better, but, actually I know about of couple really noise-free halls. Or it has musical education corpus at the side, or metro, or conditioner\loud lights)


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## wst3 (Jun 10, 2018)

I have yet to hear a completely artifact free noise reduction system, no matter how little you apply. The original Cedar hardware comes darned close, for steady state noise. The problem, for me anyway, is the buildup, when you process a bunch of samples and then use them in a musical context - I'd rather have the little bit of noise. Not a lot of noise, but if it is little enough that you don't need much reduction then you are probably better off leaving it alone.

The organ is an interesting example... I'm not sure why one would want to get rid of the noises from the motors or compressors. I think you want to record the instrument to minimize the noise, but it is part of the character of the instrument. If you heard one live you'd hear the same noises. Of course they would not build up in the same manner, but they would be there.

Ultimately it is a case of for each their own.


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## Levitanus (Jun 11, 2018)

wst3 said:


> but it is part of the character of the instrument.


well, as many registers turned on, as louder noise is)
P.S. So, noises are recorded separately)


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## Morning Coffee (Jun 11, 2018)

I'm presuming you know the essentials when recording sound sources, like good microphone selection and placement, proper gain staging, use of high and low pass filters when or if necessary etc. 

I haven't used one, but when I had a cheap recording interface, I was thinking about buying a Cloudlifter mic activator (or similar) to help reduce noise. Perhaps you could put that in your signal chain between the microphone and your microphone preamps . This unit is suppose to provide an extra 25dB of clean gain, so you won't need to boost your mic preamp as much to get a good level, which therefore hopefully means that less noise is produced in the recording. The caveat being it only works with dynamic and ribbon microphones.


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## Erick - BVA (Jun 11, 2018)

There are some tricks to avoid artefacts with noise reductions --at least what I've been discovering recently (steps at the bottom). First and foremost would be to avoid needing it, or to need it as little as possible.
Getting a good mic, with a low self noise is important. There are some pretty decent ones which are reasonable in price:

Rode NT1/NT1-A
Blue Baby Bottle

While condensor mics have a good signal to noise ratio, they can also be a little noisy at times --due to their circuitry.
And then while dynamic mics by definition should have fairly low self-noise, they also have a poor signal to noise ratio compared to condensor mics, so that low-self noise doesn't really help because you have to push the gain to pick up anything anyway. So if you already have a decent dynamic mic --SHURE SM57 would apply-- then I highly recommend the Cloudlifter. It will help any dynamic mic (or ribbon mic) get a better signal to noise ratio. And it's $150-250 (single-dual). So it may be a more affordable option than getting a new "better" mic. I was astonished when I tried it out. It really does transform the mic into something much better.

If you have the money, Earthworks QTC mics are supposed to be specifically for recording quiet sound sources.

I think with recording technique, the most obvious thing would try to get as close to the sound source as possible without having any detrimental proximity effects (or distortion of course). So there would be a lot of trial and error there.
The Electrovoice RE series are supposed to be good with proximity issues, but they are also not cheap, and would need a cloudlifter anyway if wanting to avoid noise.

One thing I've been doing for noise reduction is doing it in multiple stages. 

1. Create the noise profile in one instance of the noise reduction software
2. Freeze the noise profile (start using the noise reduction based on the noise profile)
3. Turn down the intensity of the noise reduction so that it's not removing a lot (about -10db in Acon Digital and about 0.0 threshold and about 50 reduction in X-Noise). 
3. Open a new instance of the plugin. Create a new sound profile based on the left-over noise from the 1st instance. 
4. Freeze and use the noise reduction profile for the 2nd instance. 
5. Turn down the intensity of the noise reduction for the 2nd instance as well (maybe even moreso). 
(the entire time of making these noise profiles, you only want to have your DAW or Editing software looped into the noise only, none of the desired sound should be present). 

This will have a much more forgiving effect of reducing the unwanted noise compared to using it heavily on a single instance.
If you have Acon's denoise, then it may be good to also utilize the emphasis filter a little bit. 
Not sure how RX works since I don't own that one, but I'm sure the same principle would apply. 
Also, consider delicate use of a good de-verberation plugin. Sometimes this can help remove artifacts or even noise.


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## Erick - BVA (Jun 11, 2018)

wst3 said:


> I have yet to hear a completely artifact free noise reduction system, no matter how little you apply. The original Cedar hardware comes darned close, for steady state noise. The problem, for me anyway, is the buildup, when you process a bunch of samples and then use them in a musical context - I'd rather have the little bit of noise. Not a lot of noise, but if it is little enough that you don't need much reduction then you are probably better off leaving it alone.
> 
> The organ is an interesting example... I'm not sure why one would want to get rid of the noises from the motors or compressors. I think you want to record the instrument to minimize the noise, but it is part of the character of the instrument. If you heard one live you'd hear the same noises. Of course they would not build up in the same manner, but they would be there.
> 
> Ultimately it is a case of for each their own.


Mic noise and ambient noise is not a part of the instrument though. I think you're thinking of the warmness of recorded music --like the warm vibes of vinyl.
Having a little noise can be pleasing in certain circumstances. But if you want to get the instrument to sound as realistic as possible, then you need everything but that instrument to be as quiet as possible. Then you do what Levitanus said if you want to add some character. Otherwise, you can tell (more so at least) that it's a samples instruments, because the noise is heard consistently which each key press.



Levitanus said:


> well, as many registers turned on, as louder noise is)
> P.S. So, noises are recorded separately)


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## Erick - BVA (Jun 11, 2018)

To clarify, by ambient noise, I don't mean the interaction of the instrument with the environment or room. That is part of the instrument. I'm talking about squeaky chairs and coughs and things like that. Those sorts of things can be good for getting a realistic sound (like with an orchestra). But it would still be good to have that as an option to add in if you desire.


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## willbedford (Jun 11, 2018)

Levitanus said:


> Noise reduction anyway is needed. If only You are not recording the Air studio by 40KHz-sensibility microphones


I did a few sampling sessions at Air recently, with Geoff Foster engineering. They were some of the cleanest samples I've ever worked with, but I still ended up de-noising them a little bit. It doesn't matter how quiet the room is or how good the gear is - If you're playing a fast passage with 300 samples being triggered at once, even the quietest noise floor will build up.


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## Erick - BVA (Jun 11, 2018)

willbedford said:


> I did a few sampling sessions at Air recently, with Geoff Foster engineering. They were some of the cleanest samples I've ever worked with, but I still ended up de-noising them a little bit. It doesn't matter how quiet the room is or how good the gear is - If you're playing a fast passage with 300 samples being triggered at once, even the quietest noise floor will build up.


I started sampling a piano with very quiet (soft) articulations and no matter how quiet you get the "noise," yes, that noise builds up if you are holding several keys, especially on the fadeouts.
Do you think it's ever okay to cut out the tails and place the piano or other instruments in a virtual space? So you keep the attack, but then basically cut out the tails and add a synthetic tail through convolution.


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## Levitanus (Jun 11, 2018)

Sibelius19 said:


> basically cut out the tails and add a synthetic tail through covolution


all at producer taste. This is Chris Hein taste) But I, with all my love of normalization and down-bit_ing for playability and resource efficiency, moving to the real conditions, especially at the releases and transitions.


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## Erick - BVA (Jun 11, 2018)

Levitanus said:


> all at producer taste. This is Chris Hein taste) But I, with all my love of normalization and down-bit_ing for playability and resource efficiency, moving to the real conditions, especially at the releases and transitions.


I supposed it may be good if you want to create a different kind of sound, like morphing the instrument into something completely different. Definitely not good if you want to keep the character and feel of the instument.


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