# A rant on the hiss that's in so many orchestral libraries.



## Headlands (Mar 20, 2019)

I come from a strong recording background, and through my dad (who was a classical musician his whole life) I know that most classical orchestras embraced digital years ago primarily because of the noise/hiss issue -- very soft passages weren't covered in analog hiss for the first time. There were sonic tradeoffs with that, especially in the old days of digital, but not as much these days.

So many libraries seem to prefer having hiss on there *(I'm NOT talking about room tone or bow noise -- I'm only talking about actual tape/mic/older mic pre hiss)*, like it's somehow a good thing. Engineers were always trying to get _rid_ of hiss in the analog days. It's a cute nostalgia thing but has no place in modern productions, unless you want to add it yourself for some reason. Libraries, from Spitfire to CSS, have huge amounts of noise on every patch that's highly audible in softer dynamics, and I can't understand who thought that it's a good idea to not address that as best as possible. Recording to tape? Well, OK, but not at the cost of hiss that adds up hugely in sampled orchestra projects.

I think it's a mistake and it bugs the living hell out me when I have to deal with it. I've even had a couple of clients for my scores ask me if I can get rid of the hiss because they're used to hearing things clean and clear. For my pop song mixes, if I have plugins that add audible noise my clients will almost always ask me if I can get rid of it.

I've even considered using Izotope RX to reduce the hiss on the actual samples for these libraries, but that's a huge project. There is no reason to be stuck with the _bad_ parts of analog in these modern times -- you can record with great pre-amps and mics and not have nearly as much noise as many of these libraries have with softer dynamics -- I know because I did that all of the time when I was recording. Are they all going to tape? I know Spitfire does, not sure about other noisy ones.

I would strongly urge library companies to give people the option to add their own noise with plugins or something if for some reason they think it makes things sound better. It's nostalgic for no reason whatsoever otherwise, IMO.

Thoughts? Opinions? Note: I know extremely well how to mix (I do it professionally as well as composing/producing - not saying this to be egotistical) and record, and I know all about how things _used_ to be --that's not the issue here. The issue is that in 2019 we need to have the utmost flexibility to do whatever we want to do creatively, and excessive noise like these libraries have can and does get in the way of that, for me and many other composers I know. Don't agree? Don't be haughty or prideful about it -- just tell me your opinions, I'd love to hear them.


----------



## chocobitz825 (Mar 20, 2019)

Headlands said:


> I come from a strong recording background, and through my dad (who was a classical musician his whole life) I know that most classical orchestras embraced digital years ago primarily because of the noise/hiss issue -- very soft passages weren't covered in analog hiss for the first time. There were sonic tradeoffs with that, especially in the old days of digital, but not as much these days.
> 
> So many libraries seem to prefer having hiss on there, like it's somehow a good thing. Engineers were always trying to get _rid_ of hiss in the analog days. It's a cute nostalgia thing but has no place in modern productions, unless you want to add it yourself for some reason. Libraries, from Spitfire to CSS, have huge amounts of noise on every patch that's highly audible in softer dynamics, and I can't understand who thought that it's a good idea to not address that as best as possible. Recording to tape? Well, OK, but not at the cost of hiss that adds up hugely in sampled orchestra projects.
> 
> ...



funny because ii went back into Light and Sounds Chamber strings, and tried the patch "Room Tones" which seems to just be harmonic hissing from the room....

I'll admit the hiss hasn't bothered me overall, but if there were a cleaner way to record, its probably best if they did it.


----------



## Headlands (Mar 20, 2019)

chocobitz825 said:


> I'll admit the hiss hasn't bothered me overall, but if there were a cleaner way to record, its probably best if they did it.



I agree, yes. I've been doing extremity quiet pieces for a film I'm working on and it's super noticeable, which is what prompted me to finally write about it.


----------



## CT (Mar 20, 2019)

I like the little bit of noise and "character" that comes from tape and analog devices (or emulations), but as a final step in the chain. A little bit sprinkled over everything. I don't think I'd miss it if it were purged from every individual sample.


----------



## erica-grace (Mar 20, 2019)

Isn't some hiss normal? Caused by mic pres?


----------



## Headlands (Mar 20, 2019)

erica-grace said:


> Isn't some hiss normal? Caused by mic pres?



_Some_ hiss, yes. But the degree that it's in some libraries indicates either tape or something else (old noisy mic pres, etc). When I was recording I could do super quiet passages with just a tiny bit of noise, compared to bucketloads of noise that I hear in some libraries.


----------



## Headlands (Mar 20, 2019)

miket said:


> I like the little bit of noise and "character" that comes from tape and analog devices (or emulations), but as a final step in the chain. A little bit sprinkled over everything. I don't think I'd miss it if it were purged from every individual sample.



I hear you, yeah.


----------



## Quasar (Mar 20, 2019)

chocobitz825 said:


> *funny because ii went back into Light and Sounds Chamber strings, and tried the patch "Room Tones" which seems to just be harmonic hissing from the room....*
> 
> I'll admit the hiss hasn't bothered me overall, but if there were a cleaner way to record, its probably best if they did it.



I love this patch in L&S, which of course can be used with any VI and adjusted to taste... With the libraries I have at least, I am not bothered by hiss. More troublesome are the occasional pops and clicks, though they can also be dealt with fairly easily. 

By far my biggest pet peeve with sample library imperfections is when an instrument's timbre is inconsistent across the various articulations. AFAIK there is no obvious work-around for that...


----------



## Jeremy Gillam (Mar 20, 2019)

All sample libraries have to be de-noised due to the noisefloor build up that you get from layering so many microphones. Many string libraries for example have three microphone positions to choose from, but those are actually submixes of 20-30 mics or whatever. So if you play just 4 notes you might be dealing with the noisefloor of 120 or so microphones. De-noising sacrifices some of the clarity of the original recordings, but it's a necessary tradeoff. Different developers have different philosophies of how to approach this, hence the disparity in hiss/noise across various libraries.


----------



## ashtongleckman (Mar 20, 2019)

Go listen to James Newton Howard, Ben Wallfisch, or Desplat recordings. You’ll hear tons of room tone. It’s normal and I really like it in samples, keeps it raw and realistic.


----------



## erica-grace (Mar 20, 2019)

Jeremy Gillam said:


> 120 or so microphones



Umm, there aren't _that_ many...


----------



## Jeremy Gillam (Mar 20, 2019)

erica-grace said:


> Umm, there aren't _that_ many...


In order to create polyphony the number of microphones used to sample each note is multiplied by the number of notes being played. So if you play one note on the violins that was sampled using 20 microphones, one note in the violas that was sampled using 20 microphones (in the same configuration perhaps but at a different moment in time), and so on, the number of mics skyrockets.


----------



## erica-grace (Mar 20, 2019)

Oh, I misunderstood! I thought you were saying that there were usually about 120 mics for a recording session. I didnt realize you were saying that it's the amount of mics X the amount of notes being played. Sorry!


----------



## colony nofi (Mar 20, 2019)

Oh stacking noise is a huge issue with sampling. 

I sometimes think that every (media) composers formative education (or even later when they're in the world trying to make a living from this artform) should include learning how to make a sample instrument. Start with something basic - and do a project like Christian Henson's MVP Piano. Indeed - if anyone here hasn't done it before and has a piano, go ahead and contribute to that project NOW! 

Anyone here who uses Nuendo can build really simple sample instruments right in their timeline. It's awesome. Then when you want a little more flexibility with things, learn a little about Kontakt. (The Logic sampler is quite good too!)

Anyway - my point is - this will quickly show up how sampling is a very different artform to recording. Even though it involves recording.

As Jeremy pointed out, voice stacking quickly adds up.

For fun, go grab a detailed piano kontakt library, and play with the pedal down for a while. Maybe some ostinato / textural phrase. It is easy to reach 300PLUS voices playing back at once. Each of those voices can be made of more than one mic (if using a "mix" palette it will often be 6 or 8 even for just a piano. So its quite easy to get a situation with just a single instrument to have 1000's of individual signals summing to make the one sound. Noise - no matter how low - will play a part.

My conversations with various developers over the years have shown me how the attention to noise floor is paramount. Even when they're using character equipment.

Some devs go for super super quiet mics, preamps etc. Even they can need post production (you'd be surprised the amount of work done on samples before they hit a final product in kontakt!) . Some devs do like tape / using tube gear etc. Used well, this isn't as quiet as solid state gear, but it is still very quiet - and it definitely changes the character of the samples. But perhaps it is not to taste for composers who need things to be super super quiet. 

Add to that the need for media composers to present palettes of sound that could never be reproduced by a real recording without riding faders. I'm talking about super soft pianos, strings, orchestral instruments. Its an artificial dynamic created by gaining up the samples significantly. 

End of last year I recorded a quintet + piano for a score in a super quiet concert hall + studio in Glasgow. Great gear, an awesome engineer and producer. 

I was using loads of super soft playing / textural orchestration. Not too many mics. Spots, Tree and Surrounds. Never more than a single overdub. And yeah, the engineer hit me up a few days after delivering the files with new files he had additionally denoised as he felt it really needed it.

And during the mix - oh did we have noise to deal with. Funnily enough, I got both used to it - especially after getting the temp mix from the dubbing stage for the rest of the film to mix "around'... and I totally embraced the noise in the end - even for the super quiet emotional pieces. For me it really worked - but I was on the edge at a time.

I also played back the premixes (prior to live recording) of the noisiest cues - and they used what others would consider noisy samples - and the final result was definitely quieter than the recording. 

(We *chose*) on the recording to use ribbons on the piano for the sound - knowing the noise there would be the noisiest bit! But it was a good wakeup to the immense work the sample devs put into getting us the tools we do have.

Most of the time I can tell noise issues in samples before buying them. Just listening to quiet demos etc. And reading reviews. I've never personally come across a time when it has stopped me from using the sound... or just changing up an idea in response to me not liking a result etc. Creative constraints and all that.

I choose to celebrate the tools. Yeah, it can provide frustration at times. I understand that. But also, samples are bloody AMAZING! I listen to what I did 25 years ago knowing what sampling tools were around then / libs etc - and to hear what is possible - just WOW!

So I'm just not sure I subscribe to the idea that because there is inherent noise involved in a particular sampling technique that a company shouldn't offer it to market. It isn't in everyones taste and its a square peg at times for your round hole. But there's plenty of square holes I need filling at times...

And I appreciate the character that comes from some equipment choices and especially room choices. They're all choices. The more I think about it, the more it feels similar to the room / reverb sampling arguments that have been going on for years. Both sides have their place. Sometimes we just need to realise our tools are not all one size fits all or even most. 

And celebrate the tools for what they are.


----------



## Consona (Mar 20, 2019)

Headlands said:


> I've even considered using Izotope RX to reduce the hiss on the actual samples for these libraries


That's what I do. There's not even one mix where I wouldn't use RX's denoiser or declicker. Some Cinebrass Pro low dynamics patches are such a noisefest, or some Cinematic Strings 2 patches have those clicks in them. RX can help with these things a lot.

Why can't you use it on a big project? CPU problems or what?


----------



## nas (Mar 21, 2019)

It can be a little distracting when soloed but usually isn't a problem in a mix. I found some the other day in one of my percussion libraries on a Celesta instrument and it really bugged me because it kept coming in and out every time I struck a key and sounded quite unnatural. I just put an HPF on it and that seemed to help significantly - and as I mentioned it wan't really a problem in the entire mix, just distracting when I was working on individual parts.


----------



## GtrString (Mar 21, 2019)

I do agree. With other instruments like vocals, guitars ect we go through so many hoops to get a good signal to noise ratio, and pitching music to film and tv is not easy with noisy samples. When I want authentic, I record a player, or route audio out into a speaker/ cab and re-record with a mic ect. The last thing I need is baked-in noise with samples.


----------



## Dietz (Mar 21, 2019)

ashtongleckman said:


> Go listen to James Newton Howard, Ben Wallfisch, or Desplat recordings. You’ll hear tons of room tone. It’s normal and I really like it in samples, keeps it raw and realistic.


Yes - but you hear the noise _once_ in a real recording, not multiplied by the number of voices you play. There's a difference between a "raw" and a simply bad recording.


----------



## barteredbride (Mar 21, 2019)

Headlands said:


> I come from a strong recording background, and through my dad (who was a classical musician his whole life) I know that most classical orchestras embraced digital years ago primarily because of the noise/hiss issue -- very soft passages weren't covered in analog hiss for the first time. There were sonic tradeoffs with that, especially in the old days of digital, but not as much these days.
> 
> So many libraries seem to prefer having hiss on there (not room tone -- I mean actual tape/old electronics-style hiss), like it's somehow a good thing. Engineers were always trying to get _rid_ of hiss in the analog days. It's a cute nostalgia thing but has no place in modern productions, unless you want to add it yourself for some reason. Libraries, from Spitfire to CSS, have huge amounts of noise on every patch that's highly audible in softer dynamics, and I can't understand who thought that it's a good idea to not address that as best as possible. Recording to tape? Well, OK, but not at the cost of hiss that adds up hugely in sampled orchestra projects.
> 
> ...


If you didn't record the samples straight to tape, people would complain they're not warm enough sounding!

People are used to hearing orchestral recordings to tape. Ears are trained to associate it with authenticity.


----------



## Headlands (Mar 21, 2019)

ashtongleckman said:


> Go listen to James Newton Howard, Ben Wallfisch, or Desplat recordings. You’ll hear tons of room tone. It’s normal and I really like it in samples, keeps it raw and realistic.



As I said in the original post, it's not room tone that I'm referring to. It's hiss, which is in either tape or mic press that are old, etc. Room tone is something very different from what I'm talking about, and when I was recording it was definitely a desired part of the sound.


----------



## Headlands (Mar 21, 2019)

barteredbride said:


> If you didn't record the samples straight to tape, people would complain they're not warm enough sounding!
> 
> People are used to hearing orchestral recordings to tape. Ears are trained to associate it with authenticity.



I must disagree. Yes, tape was exclusively used _years_ ago before digital, and once digital was here it was highly desired by orchestras (including most movie scores due to its flexibility) because of what I'm talking about. Not all, of course, but I would say by the most for sure.

Tape has a warmer sound mostly because of its limited bandwidth in the high end especially, and its imperfections...both which have their place if one wants that sound but for modern flexibility and cleanliness should be an option instead of a mandate. And with plugins you can get so close to that warmth that no one would know in a double blind test, which I had done to me a few years with a group of audio snobs like myself. Most good plugins emulation plugins have hiss/noise as an option that you can turn off or adjust the level on, which is brilliant.


----------



## Headlands (Mar 21, 2019)

Dietz said:


> Yes - but you hear the noise _once_ in a real recording, not multiplied by the number of voices you play. There's a difference between a "raw" and a simply bad recording.



And this! A very, very important point whether we're discussing room tone or hiss.


----------



## Headlands (Mar 21, 2019)

Consona said:


> That's what I do. There's not even one mix where I wouldn't use RX's denoiser or declicker. Some Cinebrass Pro low dynamics patches are such a noisefest, or some Cinematic Strings 2 patches have those clicks in them. RX can help with these things a lot.
> 
> Why can't you use it on a big project? CPU problems or what?



Yes, it's a CPU problem mostly. Can I ask how you use RX's Spectral De-Noiser? I'm just curious to compare it to how I do, maybe I can improve my use of it.


----------



## Headlands (Mar 21, 2019)

colony nofi said:


> Oh stacking noise is a huge issue with sampling.
> 
> I sometimes think that every (media) composers formative education (or even later when they're in the world trying to make a living from this artform) should include learning how to make a sample instrument. Start with something basic - and do a project like Christian Henson's MVP Piano. Indeed - if anyone here hasn't done it before and has a piano, go ahead and contribute to that project NOW!
> 
> ...



I agree on this -- I of course use them and enjoy them. But that doesn't mean there's no room for improvement -- there are some orchestral sample libraries that don't have _nearly_ as much noise (hiss) as others. Room tone is definitely something I love, but the hiss? Not so much in the excessive amounts I hear in the majority of orchestral sample sets. When some clients start to ask me about it in quieter scores where I use libraries that I love creatively like Tundra or soft dynamics on CSS strings/brass, etc., etc., I know that many modern ears aren't used to that much hiss and don't want it. My opinion is that it doesn't need to be there in the excessive amounts that many libraries have it...and again, some have it at a much more manageable level.


----------



## Headlands (Mar 21, 2019)

nas said:


> It can be a little distracting when soloed but usually isn't a problem in a mix. I found some the other day in one of my percussion libraries on a Celesta instrument and it really bugged me because it kept coming in and out every time I struck a key and sounded quite unnatural. I just put an HPF on it and that seemed to help significantly - and as I mentioned it wan't really a problem in the entire mix, just distracting when I was working on individual parts.



I hear you. The main place it becomes an issue for me (among some other places, of course) is in soft passages that might be mixed very loud in a part of a movie. For those here who might say "that's not how you properly mix a movie!", you can tell that to the clients I have that do mix their movies that way.


----------



## barteredbride (Mar 21, 2019)

Headlands said:


> I must disagree. Yes, tape was exclusively used _years_ ago before digital, and once digital was here it was highly desired by orchestras (including most movie scores due to its flexibility) because of what I'm talking about. Not all, of course, but I would say by far the most.
> 
> Tape has a warmer sound mostly because of its limited bandwidth in the high end especially, and its imperfections...both which have their place if one wants that sound but for modern flexibility and cleanliness should be an option instead of a mandate. And with plugins you can get so close to that warmth that no one would know in a double blind test, which I had done to me a few years with a group of audio snobs like myself.


Of course, I agree with your main point in your post. And I'd love to choose myself between a sample recorded to tape and without tape. But the price of the library would surely be more expensive.

It's an interesting discussion and I'd love to hear a clean sample without any tape input.

In any case, i remember seeing a video from alan meyerson, where he took the recordings of the real orchestra and smothered them in a Waves tape plugin !


----------



## Headlands (Mar 21, 2019)

barteredbride said:


> Of course, I agree with your main point in your post. And I'd love to choose myself between a sample recorded to tape and without tape. But the price of the library would surely be more expensive.
> 
> It's an interesting discussion and I'd love to hear a clean sample without any tape input.
> 
> In any case, i remember seeing a video from alan meyerson, where he took the recordings of the real orchestra and smothered them in a Waves tape plugin !



I remember that video!


----------



## Consona (Mar 21, 2019)

Headlands said:


> Yes, it's a CPU problem mostly. Can I ask how you use RX's Spectral De-Noiser? I'm just curious to compare it to how I do, maybe I can improve my use of it.


I only have RX Elements, so I use its plugins as inserts on problematic tracks, so nothing that interesting, sorry to disappoint.


----------



## Greg (Mar 21, 2019)

barteredbride said:


> Of course, I agree with your main point in your post. And I'd love to choose myself between a sample recorded to tape and without tape. But the price of the library would surely be more expensive.
> 
> It's an interesting discussion and I'd love to hear a clean sample without any tape input.
> 
> In any case, i remember seeing a video from alan meyerson, where he took the recordings of the real orchestra and smothered them in a Waves tape plugin !



The noise is turned off and he uses it as a multi-mono delay.


----------



## Greg (Mar 21, 2019)

One persons colossal mistake is another persons icing on the cake. I really like it. Probably because I love the productions of all the Icelandic composers like Olafur Arnalds who use copious amounts of analog gear on their music. I agree though, they should de noise them and have an option to turn it on or off. It definitely can build up too much depending on how many layers you have.


----------



## Headlands (Mar 21, 2019)

Greg said:


> One persons colossal mistake is another persons icing on the cake. I really like it. Probably because I love the productions of all the Icelandic composers like Olafur Arnalds who use copious amounts of analog gear on their music. I agree though, they should de noise them and have an option to turn it on or off. It definitely can build up too much depending on how many layers you have.



Well said.


----------



## jaketanner (Mar 21, 2019)

I too have a hugely strong recording background. The string hiss/noise that bothers me the most is from Cinestrings Core. They said it's because of the vintage microphones used. No problem, I'll buy that excuse...in subsequent libraries from them, they've reduced the noise considerably...now as far as tape hiss? I have yet to encounter this being an issue at all. What library and patch are you specifically referring to? Because until recent, all recordings of classical and film scores were recorded to tape, and in fact they are all going through an analog console for sure, which in and of itself produces hiss...to me, digital is sterile...not to where it's bad, just that it does not impart any harmonic content at all...strings, brass, winds, whatever...acoustic instruments benefit from some type of natural harmonic content. Humans do not hear in digital...and I think a super clean string sound, would be too flat...no character. There are ways during the recording process to maybe get them cleaner...this I agree...but to record them straight digitally, I am not certain about. It is perhaps that some companies go a bit overboard and use the total analog recording as a selling point...but then I agree...clean it up! LOL


----------



## Headlands (Mar 21, 2019)

jaketanner said:


> I too have a hugely strong recording background. The string hiss/noise that bothers me the most is from Cinestrings Core. They said it's because of the vintage microphones used. No problem, I'll buy that excuse...in subsequent libraries from them, they've reduced the noise considerably...now as far as tape hiss? I have yet to encounter this being an issue at all. What library and patch are you specifically referring to? Because until recent, all recordings of classical and film scores were recorded to tape, and in fact they are all going through an analog console for sure, which in and of itself produces hiss...to me, digital is sterile...not to where it's bad, just that it does not impart any harmonic content at all...strings, brass, winds, whatever...acoustic instruments benefit from some type of natural harmonic content. Humans do not hear in digital...and I think a super clean string sound, would be too flat...no character. There are ways during the recording process to maybe get them cleaner...this I agree...but to record them straight digitally, I am not certain about. It is perhaps that some companies go a bit overboard and use the total analog recording as a selling point...but then I agree...clean it up! LOL



I agree completely on most of your points. It's the degree of hiss that's absurd in some of these libraries. CSS comes to mind, as does most of Spitfire's stuff. Classical has been recorded largely on digital for many years now (I remember from when my Dad was playing in the SF orchestra, he told me they had started using digital a long time ago) , due to its non-noisiness. One gets the harmonic content from pres and consoles and the like, as you mentioned. The amount of noise in the libraries I'm referring to indicates something other than just the pres/consoles though.


----------



## Jimmy Hellfire (Mar 21, 2019)

I learned to live with noisy samples, because what else can you do - but the whole idea of purposely impairing the fidelity of recordings for "character" is odd to me, for all the reasons already stated in this thread. Especially since there are so many ways to add all the spunk you'd ever want to hear, in several stages of the production, with the processing tools we have at our disposal today. In a deliberate, controlled, senseful manner, depending on the piece. It's not hard to do, and can get you where you actually want to be much better than stacking noise upon noise. Recordings should be clean. No matter if it's actual performance recordings or samples. Vibe and "character" are a matter of mixing.


----------



## Headlands (Mar 21, 2019)

Jimmy Hellfire said:


> I learned to live with noisy samples, because what else can you do - but the whole idea of purposely impairing the fidelity of recordings for "character" is odd to me, for all the reasons already stated in this thread. Especially since there are so many ways to add all the spunk you'd ever want to hear, in several stages of the production, with the processing tools we have at our disposal today. In a deliberate, controlled, senseful manner, depending on the piece. It's not hard to do, and can get you where you actually want to be much better than stacking noise upon noise. Recordings should be clean. No matter if it's actual performance recordings or samples. Vibe and "character" are a matter of mixing.



THIS!!!!


----------



## jaketanner (Mar 21, 2019)

Headlands said:


> I agree completely on most of your points. It's the degree of hiss that's absurd in some of these libraries. CSS comes to mind, as does most of Spitfire's stuff. Classical has been recorded largely on digital for many years now (I remember from when my Dad was playing in the SF orchestra, he told me they had started using digital a long time ago) , due to its non-noisiness. One gets the harmonic content from pres and consoles and the like, as you mentioned. The amount of noise in the libraries I'm referring to indicates something other than just the pres/consoles though.



Can't comment on CSS, as I don't have that...but I do have Spitfire Chamber and Albion One as well as their new solo library...I really don't hear much of any hiss in those. Cinesamples core does have noise...and the noise from these libraries I am now thinking is just because they're old...7 years ago maybe...techniques have improved since then.


----------



## Saxer (Mar 21, 2019)

I don't care about noise/hiss in recordings. Orchestras are loud because 60 even very disciplined people in a room are never quiet.
But in samples it's a different thing. Like little mistakes that are normal in live playing repeating mistakes on one sample note can make you mad. And I find the end of hiss in an ending of a sample is much more obvious than a steady noise floor. A single car driving by gets more attention than a busy highway.
Sometimes it helps to get a musical noise floor out of texture pads or those Tundras/Evolutions/TimeMacros to cover the dynamics of sample noise. It glues things together.


----------



## novaburst (Mar 22, 2019)

I do believe The reason why this type of hissing noise or for that matter any type of noise does not bother composers or mixers of today is because of the noise removal tools that are available to use

Even if you have a very noisy sample in your mind its as if its not there because of these tools, izotope RX.

To day yes we can do anything so bring as much noisy samples as you like and I will just slap a noise removing tool and remove it 100%

a lot of noise is left alone as it does remind us that humans are playing the instruments and gives an organic effect that is very appealing most of the time.

Bottom line is noise should not bother any mixer or composer in any way, we just simply have a million tools at our hands to put things right or the way we want to hear our music we are drowning in make it good tools.


----------



## Daryl (Mar 22, 2019)

We record in stems for our orchestral recordings, and if we didn't do noise/hiss removal, the build-up would make the recordings sound far less glossy than they do. For a sample library this is even more important, as there are usually way more notes being played than the number of stems we record.


----------



## gsilbers (Mar 22, 2019)

if im not mistaken, some of these orchestral recordings not only use vintage gear like tape, old tube mics, preamps and ribbon mics, but also use a LOT of them. seeing from the spitfire info videos , there is a ton of mics i dont normally see in normal orchestral recordings. plus these low velocity articulations are in a vacuum and not in context with a wide dynamic range. in movies and orchestral recordings can be masked. and im guessing each pass contains all or several of the mics just so they can add the different mic perspectives or have a thicker sound. and the gains remains the same as to not add or reduce noise from one articulation to another and one instrument to another. they do noise reduction but too much yields that hollowish sound.
but as usualy, its not as easy. we just see it as users and each library is different. different halls, different equipment, engineers etc. and im pretty sure everyone in that chain of events understands signal flow and has heard the noise and yet had to compromise. they bring in famous recording engineers so its not like they dont know what they are doing.


----------



## Headlands (Mar 22, 2019)

novaburst said:


> I do believe The reason why this type of hissing noise or for that matter any type of noise does not bother composers or mixers of today is because of the noise removal tools that are available to use
> 
> Even if you have a very noisy sample in your mind its as if its not there because of these tools, izotope RX.
> 
> ...



This is overall an ineffective means to do it however, not only because of CPU issues (RX Spectral De-Noise is a huge CPU hog because of how good it is) but also because it's just not as good as attacking it from the source. RX can remove a good amount of the noise but it will almost always affect the sound negatively (I use RX Spectral De-Noise all of the time and it's never as good-sounding when it's on, but I'm a stickler for details so what I can say). RX -- even though it's an extremely great and useful tool -- does not do the job as well that should be done from the source and/or recorded in a way that doesn't induce *as much* noise. "They do noise reduction but too much yields that hollowish sound" was said above, and he's totally right.

There are major libraries that don't have this excessive noise issue, so I know it can be done.


----------



## Headlands (Mar 22, 2019)

gsilbers said:


> if im not mistaken, some of these orchestral recordings not only use vintage gear like tape, old tube mics, preamps and ribbon mics, but also use a LOT of them. seeing from the spitfire info videos , there is a ton of mics i dont normally see in normal orchestral recordings. plus these low velocity articulations are in a vacuum and not in context with a wide dynamic range. in movies and orchestral recordings can be masked. and im guessing each pass contains all or several of the mics just so they can add the different mic perspectives or have a thicker sound. and the gains remains the same as to not add or reduce noise from one articulation to another and one instrument to another. they do noise reduction but too much yields that hollowish sound.
> but as usualy, its not as easy. we just see it as users and each library is different. different halls, different equipment, engineers etc. and im pretty sure everyone in that chain of events understands signal flow and has heard the noise and yet had to compromise. they bring in famous recording engineers so its not like they dont know what they are doing.



I hear you and agree. Famous engineers or not, though, some libraries have a fantastic sound and don't have as much noise. I contend that a happy medium can be found that doesn't result in the excessive amount of noise with some libraries especially at soft dynamics. I've also worked with a couple of famous engineers (when I was an assistant) who made big mistakes and didn't see them, so that in and of itself doesn't mean it will be the done the best that it can be, though we would hope that it is.


----------



## novaburst (Mar 22, 2019)

Headlands said:


> There are major libraries that don't have this excessive noise issue,



then this should be the library for you to get problem solved,

A clean mix is not always the best mix a well balanced mix is much more preferred, RX is just one tool there are many others if RX does not do it for you, we are in 2019 in the digital world any ting is possible and noise is the easiest thing to deal with


----------



## Headlands (Mar 22, 2019)

novaburst said:


> then this should be the library for you to get problem solved,
> 
> A clean mix is not always the best mix a well balanced mix is much more preferred, RX is just one tool there are many others if RX does not do it for you, we are in 2019 in the digital world any ting is possible and noise is the easiest thing to deal with


 
Yes, I do know that about mixing -- have been doing it professionally for a long time. This thread is more about a personal wish that would make my life (and from what I've read here, plenty of others as well) more flexible with composing and then mixing. There's no solution that works for everyone -- this is just my personal wish and rant.


----------



## skythemusic (Mar 22, 2019)

This bothers the crap out if me in quiet high notes on violin. I hear it in every library. It sounds like crap.


----------



## halfwalk (Mar 22, 2019)

skythemusic said:


> This bothers the crap out if me in quiet high notes on violin. I hear it in every library. It sounds like crap.



I think it's tough because there's such a fine line between "bow noise" and just plain old signal noise. So if you clean it too much, some purists will say there's not enough bow/rosin noise. But if you don't clean it enough, then others will complain the library is too noisy. Violins are just noisy instruments


----------



## Diablo IV (Mar 22, 2019)

OP... I agree. That's all. lol


----------



## Headlands (Mar 22, 2019)

halfwalk said:


> I think it's tough because there's such a fine line between "bow noise" and just plain old signal noise. So if you clean it too much, some purists will say there's not enough bow/rosin noise. But if you don't clean it enough, then others will complain the library is too noisy. Violins are just noisy instruments



Bow/rosin noise isn't hiss of course... but yeah, noise reduction can unfortunately affect that noticeably sometimes if not done well.


----------



## Niah2 (Mar 23, 2019)

ashtongleckman said:


> Go listen to James Newton Howard, Ben Wallfisch, or Desplat recordings. You’ll hear tons of room tone. It’s normal and I really like it in samples, keeps it raw and realistic.



+1


----------



## X-Bassist (Mar 23, 2019)

Headlands said:


> Yes, I do know that about mixing -- have been doing it professionally for a long time. This thread is more about a personal wish that would make my life (and from what I've read here, plenty of others as well) more flexible with composing and then mixing. There's no solution that works for everyone -- this is just my personal wish and rant.



I can appreaciate your distaste for the excess noise, ever since I started recording in 1985 I’ve been trying to get hiss out of gear and tape recordings.

But the real issue is the buildup of noise wih all the notes you play, even a low noise floor can add up with samples. What needs to happen is what happens with foley recordings (recorded sound effects for film/TV), where we record in a room with an extremely low noise floor, with padded air conditioning ducts, and quiet performers (I know, studio musicians don’t realize how crucial this is to quiet recordings - low dynamics - foley artists literally hold thier breath when doing quiet foley, or you get “key turn- breeeeath- key stops turning”.

On my last feature there were 40 tracks of foley (it can go much higher), without this prep (a quiet room, quiet mics, quiet preamps right into protools) many of the tracks would be useless to cut or mix, and layering them up does start to add up quickly in a quiet scene. But I have gotten the recordings to be dead quiet, so when stacked they still don’t make a noticable hiss noise in the scene.

Many times with music noise is more forgiven, except for the quietest scenes, as you say. But I agree it is time to rethink the studio space for sample recording. Super quiet rooms that still have some character to them, mics with extremely low noise floors and preamps to match. Shortest cable runs possible. Isolated and conditioned power.

Then- yes, I’m sorry to any players reading - screwing or taping things down like stands and chairs, nothing loose or wooden should be allowed in the studio (do you know every foley artist has to be stripped of jewlery, pocket items, glasses, belts, anything that might make noise- and wear light soft clothing?) It’s all to get that noise floor (and extra noises) down to a minimum.

Then they would need to take special care when recording low dynamics, no excess noise or breaths, only people that are needed in the room, etc. Measuring the noise floor in the room (on the day) and on the recording (mics/preamps/summing) then calculating the polyphony noise floor of let’s say 32 voices is possible. But it will probably take all this and more (cleaner mics, preamps, careful editing and programming) to get to a final noise floor that will make you smile.

I’d be happy at this point to just get the talking and chair squeaks out of my Spitfire/Cinesamples/8Dio samples. 

PS - And I did an RX pass on all the samples in Sonokenetics Carnival Organ- more hissy than any library I’ve heard- and it helped, but it does suck some of the life out of the samples -air and room- so I’m not sure I would do anything but the lightest amount on orchestral samples. I hope developers can start to realize the importance of the recording space noise floor and performance noise, regardless of how famous the room is.


----------



## Andrew0568 (Mar 23, 2019)

I'm still pretty new to all this, but I was surprised at how much noise Metropolis Ark 2 has. The low strings patch has an _incredible_ tone, but there's so much noise in the samples.

[AUDIOPLUS=https://vi-control.net/community/attachments/ark2-mp3.19098/][/AUDIOPLUS]


----------



## halfwalk (Mar 23, 2019)

Andrew0568 said:


> I'm still pretty new to all this, but I was surprised at how much noise Metropolis Ark 2 has. The low strings patch has an _incredible_ tone, but there's so much noise in the samples.
> 
> [AUDIOPLUS=https://vi-control.net/community/attachments/ark2-mp3.19098/][/AUDIOPLUS]


This has been discussed on this forum in the past. Out of the box, all the instruments have a bunch of gain applied to them, so that you're playing pianissimo samples but at the perceived volume of at least mezzo forte. Turn it down to what it should be when playing pp dynamic, and you won't hear the noise as much. Of course, you won't hear the instruments much either, but that's kind of the point of pianissimo.

Take another library's pp layer and add 12db gain to it, and you'll likely hear the same kind of noise.


----------



## X-Bassist (Mar 23, 2019)

Andrew0568 said:


> I'm still pretty new to all this, but I was surprised at how much noise Metropolis Ark 2 has. The low strings patch has an _incredible_ tone, but there's so much noise in the samples.
> 
> [AUDIOPLUS=https://vi-control.net/community/attachments/ark2-mp3.19098/][/AUDIOPLUS]



This was heavily discussed when the library was released, the same issues were discussed for Spitfire Audio's Albion V Tundra ("on the edge of silence") on it's release too- though not to the same degree as OT Ark 2.

Again, I feel this is part in due to the noise levels of the room and equipment, layered up more when you add more notes, instruments, mic positions, etc. The respective studios (Teledex and Air Studios) would have to be reworked, or switch recording to a newer studio, to get the noise down for sample recording (room acoustics, gobos, A/C work(?), electrical work, wiring, mics, preamps, consoles or summing amps or any other outboard gear...). It's a big project and unfortunately, both companies are heavily invested in sticking with the same studios (for a universal sound across libraries and the notoriety these studios have), so a change would involve rethinking their whole line.

But considering Spitfire have come up with a new studio series and both are working up brand new custom samplers, it could be time for them to rethink recording soft samples. Creating a new sampling studio (large but uber quiet) is expensive but in my mind a much better use of funds (if you want to stand out in a crowded marketplace) than creating new software or interface design, which both companies are spending big dollars on ATM.


----------



## Dietz (Mar 23, 2019)

X-Bassist said:


> I can appreaciate your distaste for the excess noise, ever since I started recording in 1985 I’ve been trying to get hiss out of gear and tape recordings.
> 
> [...] I agree it is time to rethink the studio space for sample recording. Super quiet rooms that still have some character to them, mics with extremely low noise floors and preamps to match. Shortest cable runs possible. Isolated and conditioned power.
> 
> ...



... sounds pretty much like the VSL sample sessions at Silent Stage, like we started them back in 2001. We even had rules about eating and drinking before especially susceptible recordings there. 8-)


----------



## X-Bassist (Mar 23, 2019)

Dietz said:


> ... sounds pretty much like the VSL sample sessions at Silent Stage, like we started them back in 2001. We even had rules about eating and drinking before especially susceptible recordings there. 8-)



Yes, although I don't recommend a room with zero reflections, it can tend to suck the life out of recordings (6K and up). Even foley rooms have diffusers and multiple surfaces, to keep the sound from being too sterile. Some early reflections and room sound can be nice (and essential on things like Percussion and Brass) but that is separate from room noise, performer noise, and equiptment/wiring noise. A great sounding room can have a character that adds life to the recordings, but also be designed from the ground up (like foley rooms) for the lowest noise possible.

Finding a decent size, great sounding room that is exceptionally quiet is not impossible, but can be expensive depending on where it is (like near a factory, highway, or train tracks) and what needs to be done (air duct/ AC work, Isolation of the floor and walls, heavy duty electrical conditioning). I think more developers will figure this out as all other factors are cleaned up and noise buildup still remains.


----------



## Headlands (Mar 23, 2019)

X-Bassist said:


> Yes, although I don't recommend a room with zero reflections, it can tend to suck the life out of recordings (6K and up). Even foley rooms have diffusers and multiple surfaces, to keep the sound from being too sterile. Some early reflections and room sound can be nice (and essential on things like Percussion and Brass) but that is separate from room noise, performer noise, and equiptment/wiring noise. A great sounding room can have a character that adds life to the recordings, but also be designed from the ground up (like foley rooms) for the lowest noise possible.
> 
> Finding a decent size, great sounding room that is exceptionally quiet is not impossible, but can be expensive depending on where it is (like near a factory, highway, or train tracks) and what needs to be done (air duct/ AC work, Isolation of the floor and walls, heavy duty electrical conditioning). I think more developers will figure this out as all other factors are cleaned up and noise buildup still remains.



I'm referring to hiss, though, not room tone. Room noise/tone/etc. is another consideration/issue, of course.


----------



## Rctec (Mar 23, 2019)

erica-grace said:


> Umm, there aren't _that_ many...


Yes, there are. Every note added to a chord adds all the microphone/preamp again. We use roughly 32 microphones at AIR - straight to digital - and we still have to de-noise our samples very, very carefully. Running a constant room-tone sample in the track helps mask all that. But great sounding mics are a little bit noisy. So, a 10-note chord is 320 microphones, and if you use release samples, you double that...


----------



## Dietz (Mar 24, 2019)

X-Bassist said:


> I don't recommend a room with zero reflections


The Silent Stage concept is exactly this: Silence (i.e. no noise from the outside world), with lots of reflections, like from a stage.


----------



## Ned Bouhalassa (Mar 24, 2019)

Trying to remember the last time excessive noise affected my compositional process/inspiration/clients’ satisfaction... nope, can’t think of one time. Oh wait, yes, it was when I could add room-tone noise, and that noise would not go away as long as the track was armed (the otherwise lovely Midnight Grand).

Maybe I have a different threshold, having played with bass/guitar amps, owning a very-fan-noisy Memorymoog+, adding noise when programming synth patches, etc.


----------



## chibear (Mar 24, 2019)

After following this thread from the beginning, the question remains in my head (and at the user end, not the developer BTW) "Why not just EQ to attenuate or eliminate the problem completely?" My thinking may be a bit naive, but if you are hearing the hiss then it is either above the upper partials of the note or has wiped them out. Either way it can go IF it bothers you. Why should devs keep it? Because one person's poison is another's spice.


----------



## erica-grace (Mar 24, 2019)

Rctec said:


> Yes, there are.



I have already stated that I misunderstood the poster before me, ty.


----------



## Ned Bouhalassa (Mar 24, 2019)

I actually have been using Logic’s new Pultec EQ to boost the highs in my string libraries, to compensate for hiss-reduction by the developers. Let us remember that reducing hiss also reduces some of the instrument’s sparkle. Does it add noise? Yes. Do I prefer the overall result? Yes!


----------



## InLight-Tone (Mar 24, 2019)

LIFE is too short for this...


----------



## Polkasound (Mar 24, 2019)

Ned Bouhalassa said:


> Let us remember that reducing hiss also reduces some of the instrument’s sparkle.



This kind of reminds me of cassette tapes and Dolby noise reduction. Even though commercial releases were typically encoded in Dolby, I (and everyone I knew back then) never engaged it on cassette decks. I preferred to let the music play wide open, hiss and everything, to get all the sparkle.


----------



## Daniel James (Mar 24, 2019)

Haha just write awesome music. Unless it sounds like someone is blasting a white noise machine, the people listening don't give a fuck about noise, if the music is awesome.

Life has white noise in it, we are used to it. Focus on the music and a lot of these issues just fade away. If its still getting to you, try bringing up the reverb a little. Realistic noise on instruments really makes some reverbs sing.

Then again a lot of my music is made with horribly recorded metal scrapes and hitting washing machines so I am used to it, if it works people usually don't care beyond that. From my experience at least.

Either way, just have more fun with it 

-DJ


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 24, 2019)

Hiss actually makes the music sound brighter.

Seriously, try adding a tiny bit of white or pink noise with a test oscillator plug-in and you'll see what I'm talking about. 

Logic's test oscillator can do that, for example.


----------



## Headlands (Mar 24, 2019)

Daniel James said:


> Haha just write awesome music. Unless it sounds like someone is blasting a white noise machine, the people listening don't give a fuck about noise, if the music is awesome.
> 
> Life has white noise in it, we are used to it. Focus on the music and a lot of these issues just fade away. If its still getting to you, try bringing up the reverb a little. Realistic noise on instruments really makes some reverbs sing.
> 
> ...



I always have fun. This thread has nothing to do with that!


----------



## robgb (Mar 24, 2019)

Are you talking about bow noise or room sound? The only noise I've really encountered is on the tails of certain libraries when you can hear the room hum pretty clearly if you're wearing headphones and you turn the volume up pretty high. But in a mix it's barely noticeable, and certainly doesn't mar a recording. If you're getting it on very quiet passages, welcome to the world of recording.


----------



## Kent (Mar 24, 2019)

robgb said:


> Are you talking about bow noise or room sound? The only noise I've really encountered is on the tails of certain libraries when you can hear the room hum pretty clearly if you're wearing headphones and you turn the volume up pretty high. But in a mix it's barely noticeable, and certainly doesn't mar a recording. If you're getting it on very quiet passages, welcome to the world of recording.


I'm not the OP, but I'd say neither. For example, I posted this last year in another thread:



kmaster said:


> Here is a test I made few months back when I was having a similar discussion with a friend. It's CSS, but the problem exists in CSSS also.
> 
> CSS Hiss Test
> 
> It's the same two notes from the Mix, Tree, and Close mics, respectively. As you'll hear, the first two have a good bit of hiss, and the last one does not (at least not nearly to that same noticeable level).



I believe this is the sort of hiss being discussed here.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 24, 2019)

kmaster said:


> Mix, Tree, and Close mics, respectively. As you'll hear, the first two have a good bit of hiss, and the last one does not



...for obvious reasons.

(I haven't even read the beginning of this thread, so I don't know what library we're talking about - just saying.)


----------



## robgb (Mar 25, 2019)

kmaster said:


> I'm not the OP, but I'd say neither. For example, I posted this last year in another thread:
> 
> 
> 
> I believe this is the sort of hiss being discussed here.


THIS is what's being complained about? Quit being so picky and just make music. Seriously. This is nothing.


----------



## Saxer (Mar 25, 2019)

robgb said:


> THIS is what's being complained about? Quit being so picky and just make music. Seriously. This is nothing.


+1
Have you ever opened the audio tracks of a real orchestra recording? Compared to that example it sounds like a crossroad in Italy.


----------



## Kent (Mar 25, 2019)

robgb said:


> THIS is what's being complained about? Quit being so picky and just make music. Seriously. This is nothing.


Tell that to the clients. I’ve had them complain about that exact hiss.


----------



## Jeremy Spencer (Mar 25, 2019)

kmaster said:


> ell that to the clients. I’ve had them complain about that exact hiss.



Actually, I had this complaint recently, and the only time I've had such a complaint. It was from using CS2! I loved this library at first, but the noise level is so bad that they are virtually unusable for final renderings.


----------



## Ned Bouhalassa (Mar 25, 2019)

Since 1993, I’ve never heard a client complain about hiss. I must be very lucky!


----------



## PaulieDC (Mar 25, 2019)

Sounds to me like everyone is having a hissy fit.




::::ducking as all the rubber chickens start sailing at my head::::


----------



## X-Bassist (Mar 25, 2019)

chibear said:


> After following this thread from the beginning, the question remains in my head (and at the user end, not the developer BTW) "Why not just EQ to attenuate or eliminate the problem completely?" My thinking may be a bit naive, but if you are hearing the hiss then it is either above the upper partials of the note or has wiped them out. Either way it can go IF it bothers you. Why should devs keep it? Because one person's poison is another's spice.



Because most noise is broadband, meaning most of the high end would need to be taken out to get the noise out, or at least attenuated. Yes, putting a low pass filter on it might get rid of the noise, but a muffled sound is never ideal.

A hum or specific frequency noise could be fixed this way, but I have yet to hear a sample library with this problem. As with most noise, removing or reducing the source of the noise is the best way (and sometimes the only way) to remove it without affecting the instrument’s sound. (Even RX7 leaves behind frequency phasing).


----------



## newman (Mar 25, 2019)

Karvala ran a nice visual summary of noise for some popular piano VIs here:

http://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthre...pointed-in-garritan-cfx-lite.html#Post2695381

Jeff Hurchalla, Lead Developer of Garritan CFX, provided insight in several threads at PianoWorld regarding balancing the Abbey Road sound & denoising the samples.


----------



## robgb (Mar 25, 2019)

kmaster said:


> Tell that to the clients. I’ve had them complain about that exact hiss.


They must have superhuman ears, then. A couple of clients complaining does not make it a genuine problem. I mean, seriously, I've been mixing and recording for forty years and if you or they think this is hiss, you clearly haven't heard REAL hiss.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 25, 2019)

I'm surprised no audio nerds here have chimed in on what I wrote above - that hiss actually makes the recording sound brighter, so much so that some engineers actually *added* it to early digital recordings!

In other words, you might be surprised that you actually miss the hiss.


----------



## willbedford (Mar 25, 2019)

Ned Bouhalassa said:


> I could add room-tone noise, and that noise would not go away as long as the track was armed (the otherwise lovely Midnight Grand).


There's a mode in the settings page which makes the room tone only play when the DAW is playing


----------



## Ned Bouhalassa (Mar 25, 2019)

willbedford said:


> There's a mode in the settings page which makes the room tone only play when the DAW is playing


Excellent! Makes this inspiring piano even better!


----------



## halfwalk (Mar 25, 2019)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> I'm surprised no audio nerds here have chimed in on what I wrote above - that hiss actually makes the recording sound brighter, so much so that some engineers actually *added* it to early digital recordings!
> 
> In other words, you might be surprised that you actually miss the hiss.



It is a neat little psychoacoustic magic trick indeed. Plus, we're conditioned by decades of recordings to hear (and consequently tune out subconsciously) that sort of hiss, to the point where it almost sounds unnatural if it's not there, but just enough that you can't quite put your finger on it. Like the Haas effect or binaural beats, it's almost an "auditory illusion."

Isn't that kind of related to dithering, too? And the reason why someone like Chris from Airwindows wrote a dozen different dither algos, each with their own unique sonic fingerprint? Then again, to be honest I never quite wrapped my head around dithering, but I know that it involves noise being added to a signal for addressing bit resolution.


----------



## Ned Bouhalassa (Mar 25, 2019)

Airwindows - brilliant plugs which I forgot about!


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 25, 2019)

halfwalk said:


> Isn't that kind of related to dithering, too? And the reason why someone like Chris from Airwindows wrote a dozen different dither algos, each with their own unique sonic fingerprint? Then again, to be honest I never quite wrapped my head around dithering, but I know that it involves noise being added to a signal for addressing bit resolution.



Right. Well, dithering is more subtle - or I should say the dither noise itself is, for one because it's at a much lower level than hiss, but mainly because it's designed carefully not to be heard.

The basic idea is that when you reduce the number of bits - typically when you go down from the 24-bit production standard to 16 for CDs (I know, what are those?) - what you lose is low-level detail (because you're truncating the bottom bits) and just cutting that off can sound harsh.

So dither is very quiet noise added to the signal that causes it to jump over the 16-bit lower threshold some of the time, thus smoothing the transition to silence. The best analogy I've heard is kids jumping up to see over the fence at a baseball game - they get a view every time they peer over.

However, the different flavors of dither get very tweaky. Not only is it noise-shaped, meaning it's at frequencies the ear is least sensitive to, it's designed to be decorrelated from the signal to help mask the effect.

You can hear the effect by recording a decaying note at 24 bits, possibly lowering it way down to make sure it falls into the bits you're losing, and bouncing that to disk at 16 bits both dithered and truncated.

Then raise the level way up and compare the two. You'll hear one fade out smoothly and the other cut off abruptly.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 25, 2019)

I just remembered another analogy, or really a description: a noise gate chattering open and closed.

Another way of looking at the difference between dither hiss and hiss hiss: low-level detail, especially in spaces, is often below the level of the noise in a recording (and samples are recordings, of course).


----------



## AlexanderSchiborr (Mar 25, 2019)

And then there are douchy people like me who even add scoring stage noise to the mix..


----------



## D Halgren (Mar 25, 2019)

AlexanderSchiborr said:


> And then there are douchy people like me who even add scoring stage noise to the mix..


As long as it's a 'World-class' scoring stage


----------



## Headlands (Mar 25, 2019)

robgb said:


> Are you talking about bow noise or room sound? The only noise I've really encountered is on the tails of certain libraries when you can hear the room hum pretty clearly if you're wearing headphones and you turn the volume up pretty high. But in a mix it's barely noticeable, and certainly doesn't mar a recording. If you're getting it on very quiet passages, welcome to the world of recording.



It's worth repeating: I'm ONLY talking about hiss, caused by mics, tape, or pres. NOT room tone or bow noise. Some libraries have it worse than others.


----------



## maxime77 (Mar 25, 2019)

Headlands said:


> It's worth repeating: I'm ONLY talking about hiss, caused by mics, tape, or pres. NOT room tone or bow noise. Some libraries have it worse than others.


Is this room tone or hiss?

[AUDIOPLUS=https://vi-control.net/community/attachments/test-mp3.19122/][/AUDIOPLUS]


----------



## halfwalk (Mar 25, 2019)

Headlands said:


> It's worth repeating: I'm ONLY talking about hiss, caused by mics, tape, or pres. NOT room tone or bow noise. Some libraries have it worse than others.



I understand, I only made the comment I did (about bow noise earlier in the thread) because in terms of frequency response, they are similar things, so denoising becomes a delicate baby/bathwater situation.

Funny how noise is so subjective, how one dev might leave it untouched while another goes wild in post. In the end, it's all just noise anyway. Music is just an incidental byproduct that only exists in your mind


----------



## erica-grace (Mar 25, 2019)

Headlands said:


> It's worth repeating: I'm ONLY talking about hiss, caused by mics, tape, or pres. NOT room tone or bow noise. Some libraries have it worse than others.



It's worth mentioning, I think, that room tone will almost always contain hiss, while hiss does not contain room tone.


----------



## Headlands (Mar 25, 2019)

maxime77 said:


> Is this room tone or hiss?
> 
> [AUDIOPLUS=https://vi-control.net/community/attachments/test-mp3.19122/][/AUDIOPLUS]



That sounds like mostly room tone to me -- a noisy room. A buildup of that can and is an issue as well, indeed. I guess both are an issue, though for me the hiss is more of problem.


----------



## Headlands (Mar 25, 2019)

erica-grace said:


> It's worth mentioning, I think, that room tone will almost always contain hiss, while hiss does not contain room tone.



Yes, totally. What I hear in the sample libraries is more actual hiss from tape, pres, and/or mics. What we're hearing is a combination of the two, though very high end hiss is from the tape, pres, and mics in my recording experience.


----------



## Headlands (Mar 25, 2019)

halfwalk said:


> I understand, I only made the comment I did (about bow noise earlier in the thread) because in terms of frequency response, they are similar things, so denoising becomes a delicate baby/bathwater situation.
> 
> Funny how noise is so subjective, how one dev might leave it untouched while another goes wild in post. In the end, it's all just noise anyway. Music is just an incidental byproduct that only exists in your mind



Agreed on all fronts.


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 25, 2019)

maxime77 said:


> Is this room tone or hiss?



Neither after you put a noise gate on it.


----------



## germancomponist (Mar 25, 2019)

Dietz said:


> Yes - but you hear the noise _once_ in a real recording, not multiplied by the number of voices you play. There's a difference between a "raw" and a simply bad recording.


I have not read all posts in this thread, so please excuse me if someone else has already suggested it.

When I use a problematic library, I bounce every midi-track into an audio track. Then I use a plugin like this in every single audio track: 

It's time consuming, but because every single audio track gets his own best noice reduction preset, the end result of the mix is light years better than if I did not do it all.


----------



## Dietz (Mar 26, 2019)

erica-grace said:


> It's worth mentioning, I think, that room tone will almost always contain hiss, while hiss does not contain room tone.


It's also worth mentioning that room tone doesn't suddenly disappear in digital black like it does in case of a "roomy" sample (... which is why noise sticks out like a sore thumb).


----------



## Jacob Cadmus (Mar 26, 2019)

Never had a complaint about hiss yet, though I did have a client complain about pedal noise in a piano cue once. He said "Sounds great, but get rid of the drums... they're distracting."


----------



## Jeremy Spencer (Mar 26, 2019)

robgb said:


> They must have superhuman ears, then. A couple of clients complaining does not make it a genuine problem.



In my case, it was in the quiet section of a cue, where it was a single string patch playing. With the CS2 patch I was using, the hiss (or room noise) was just too annoying, especially when the sample cuts off. Switched to a Hollywood Strings patch...problem gone. Some libraries are worse than others, and of course it's natural to have certain amounts of "hiss" but in this case it was sloppy engineering on the developer's part IMO. Hollywood Strings isn't perfect either...there'a few string patches where I can hear stuff like coughing, whispering, and even chairs moving. Quite amusing actually!


----------



## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 26, 2019)

Dietz said:


> It's also worth mentioning that room tone doesn't suddenly disappear in digital black like it does in case of a "roomy" sample (... which is why noise sticks out like a sore thumb).



Dietz, could you possibly explain that in different words? I don't quite follow. Are you just saying that room tone keeps going after the sample stops ringing?

In any case, I can honestly say that I haven't been bothered by samples since I used a Sequential Prophet 2002 (128K of memory, sounds loaded from one side of a floppy disc) - and then the studio's 2" tape noise drowned it out.


----------



## robgb (Mar 26, 2019)

germancomponist said:


> I have not read all posts in this thread, so please excuse me if someone else has already suggested it.
> 
> When I use a problematic library, I bounce every midi-track into an audio track. Then I use a plugin like this in every single audio track
> 
> It's time consuming, but because every single audio track gets his own best noice reduction preset, the end result of the mix is light years better than if I did not do it all.



I recently bought Waves W43 when it was on sale (may still be) and it works like a charm on noise. Uses a different method than most of the other noise apps I've used, and I have yet to get any of the warbling effect you get with those other apps.


----------



## Dietz (Mar 27, 2019)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> Dietz, could you possibly explain that in different words? I don't quite follow. Are you just saying that room tone keeps going after the sample stops ringing? [...].



Oh my - sorry, English isn't my first language. 8-)

Let me rephrase that: In Real Life, the room tone never stops_*)_. A sample, OTOH, reaches its end at a certain point, and any room tone (and/or hiss) will fade away into total silence (or worse: it stops abruptly). This makes it even more noticeable, in addition to the inherent issue of cumulated noise per voice.

_*) ... that's why there is a several minutes long loop of the original room tone available (in Ambisonics!) for every MIR Pro Venue. _


----------



## Ned Bouhalassa (Mar 27, 2019)

And that’s why we add our own special-sauce reverb to library samples, even if there’s already space/room in from the original recording.


----------



## Dietz (Mar 27, 2019)

Ned Bouhalassa said:


> And that’s why we add our own special-sauce reverb to library samples, even if there’s already space/room in from the original recording.



That's only fair! - _We_, OTOH, denoise our samples, so we don't have to drown them in reverb just to hide their shortcomings. 8-)


----------



## Ned Bouhalassa (Mar 27, 2019)

Oh snap! This should be good.


----------



## Uncle Jesse (Apr 9, 2019)

I agree with you.

The Garritan CFX has terrible noise/hiss on very low velocity samples especially in the lower registers.. It really builds up when playing multiple voices at the lowest velocities and almost dominates the sound of the piano. It is driving me crazy at the moment.


----------



## Uncle Jesse (Apr 9, 2019)

germancomponist said:


> I have not read all posts in this thread, so please excuse me if someone else has already suggested it.
> 
> When I use a problematic library, I bounce every midi-track into an audio track. Then I use a plugin like this in every single audio track:
> 
> It's time consuming, but because every single audio track gets his own best noice reduction preset, the end result of the mix is light years better than if I did not do it all.




Hey, how do you go about using x-noise if you don't have any isolated noise in the sample to get a noise profile for the learn function? The samples I'm having hiss issues with only have hiss present while the instrument is playing, so it's not possible to get an isolated noise profile.


----------



## Uncle Jesse (Apr 9, 2019)

Headlands said:


> I've even considered using Izotope RX to reduce the hiss on the actual samples for these libraries, but that's a huge project. There is no reason to be stuck with the _bad_ parts of analog in these modern times -- you can record with great pre-amps and mics and not have nearly as much noise as many of these libraries have with softer dynamics -- I know because I did that all of the time when I was recording. Are they all going to tape? I know Spitfire does, not sure about other noisy ones.



Hey, Good post man! I completely agree.. How would you go about using Izotope RX if you don't have any isolated noise in the sample to get a noise profile for the learn function?


----------



## newman (Apr 9, 2019)

Uncle Jesse said:


> The Garritan CFX has terrible noise/hiss on very low velocity samples especially in the lower registers.. It really builds up when playing multiple voices at the lowest velocities and almost dominates the sound of the piano. It is driving me crazy at the moment.


That happened to me.
I think this is an excellent piano for playing but only under basically default settings:

- Default velocity curve
- Switch off the "limiter button" (broken)​- No reverb hahaha
- Increase the "dynamic range" dial a lot YMMV
- Try the CyberGene pealing patch from the PianoWorld site for playability

I think the Full, Classic, Default piano is the best sounding mic mix by a long shot. The is no noisier than the other mic "pairs" as illustrated by the karvala graphs referenced below:

http://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthre...pointed-in-garritan-cfx-lite.html#Post2695381


----------



## germancomponist (Apr 9, 2019)

Uncle Jesse said:


> Hey, how do you go about using x-noise if you don't have any isolated noise in the sample to get a noise profile for the learn function? The samples I'm having hiss issues with only have hiss present while the instrument is playing, so it's not possible to get an isolated noise profile.


I always use the staccato recordings for this ....


----------



## Dietz (Apr 9, 2019)

Uncle Jesse said:


> Hey, how do you go about using x-noise if you don't have any isolated noise in the sample to get a noise profile for the learn function?


You can achieve remarkable results with X-Noise using nothing but the default "flat" noise profile and the high-shelf EQ, especially in case of tape hiss and mic/pre-amp noise-floor issues.


----------



## Uncle Jesse (Apr 9, 2019)

Dietz said:


> You can achieve remarkable results with X-Noise using nothing but the default "flat" noise profile and the high-shelf EQ, especially in case of tape hiss and mic/pre-amp noise-floor issues.



Cheers for this! So you would advise I go with x-noise over RX or z-noise for this? Really appreciate the help. I will have a play around with the high shelf eq in x-noise.


----------



## Headlands (Apr 9, 2019)

Wolfie2112 said:


> In my case, it was in the quiet section of a cue, where it was a single string patch playing. With the CS2 patch I was using, the hiss (or room noise) was just too annoying, especially when the sample cuts off. Switched to a Hollywood Strings patch...problem gone. Some libraries are worse than others, and of course it's natural to have certain amounts of "hiss" but in this case it was sloppy engineering on the developer's part IMO. Hollywood Strings isn't perfect either...there'a few string patches where I can hear stuff like coughing, whispering, and even chairs moving. Quite amusing actually!



Yelp, CSS is bad in many cases. I recently was encountering immense amounts of hiss on the basses that cut off when the samples cut off, as you mentioned. In this case (yesterday) my client actually mentioned it to me because the sus basses were on their own in one section, so I ended up using Izotope RX. Not ideal because you can't sample the noise in these samples, but it helped a fairly decent amount. That kind of hiss just doesn't need to be there in 2019. Period.

Everyone take note: I'm NOT talking about room tone. I'm talking about hiss, as in tape hiss, electronic noise kind of hiss. I've spend years recording and know that the kind of hiss I hear in some of these libraries does not need to be there. Does it keep me from making music? _Duh, of course not._  It doesn't mean it's something that can't be improved to make things better.


----------



## Uncle Jesse (Apr 9, 2019)

newman said:


> That happened to me.
> I think this is an excellent piano for playing but only under basically default settings:
> 
> - Default velocity curve
> ...



Wow that thread is so interesting. I had no idea others were having the same issue with the CFX. It is driving me insane! 

Thanks for your advice! Increasing the dynamic range won't help my issue cause the piece I'm producing is played entirely on very low velocities. You can imagine the hiss issues I'm having with the CFX. 

Where is the the CyberGene pealing patch? I couldn't seem to find it.


----------



## newman (Apr 9, 2019)

Uncle Jesse said:


> Where is the the CyberGene pealing patch? I couldn't seem to find it.


http://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthre...o-improve-garritan-cfx-repedaling-timing.html


----------



## Dietz (Apr 10, 2019)

Uncle Jesse said:


> Cheers for this! So you would advise I go with x-noise over RX or z-noise for this?


You're welcome! Keep in mind that the EQ shapes the _noise_, not the signal itself. Therefore, increasing the treble will also increase the effect of the denoiser, which means a darker output signal (or just more artifacts).

RX De-Noise and Z-Noise are quite different animals. Z-Noise actually the Waves-version of the legendary Algorithmix Denoiser (AFAIK) and depends completely on a good noise-print (but why not give it a try, too!  ...). RX is even more capable, but it eats CPU for breakfast.

... the beauty of X-Noise is its simplicity and efficiency, which lends this plug-in a lot to the quick fix.


----------

