noise /hum /hiss/ mastering advice

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skal1

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 4, 2008
Messages
1,282
Location
Birmingham,uk
hi



what is an acceptable level for the noise floor in a mastering setup eg. out/in puts wide open no program material .

thanks

skal1
 
its just a little behringer thing .the noiseis coming from the compressor , eq pultec ting and a one bottle.

compressor 96db noise

eq pultec ting  80db noise


one bottle  80db noise


so when then all come together the noise foor is about  76 db


the only way to keep the noise floor low is to turn down the gain on the compressor  then you lose volume .


skal1
 
A little behringer thing? mind explaining how you master your tracks?

Check these specs on commercial equipment:
http://www.prismsound.com/music_recording/products_subs/mla2/mla2_spec.php
http://www.massenburg.com/c/gml/support.html
http://www.manley.com/mslc.php#specs
http://www.mercenary.com/fcs-p3s.html

maximum noise is the manley at -85, best spec is the foote at -102.
 
j.frad said:
Check these specs on commercial equipment:
http://www.prismsound.com/music_recording/products_subs/mla2/mla2_spec.php
http://www.massenburg.com/c/gml/support.html
http://www.manley.com/mslc.php#specs
http://www.mercenary.com/fcs-p3s.html

maximum noise is the manley at -85, best spec is the foote at -102.


Hey thanks for the links j.frad , how are they measuring the equipment , with the input/outputs wide open or what.

i am a neebie just asking ?  :)

skal1
 
Hi Skal,

First a question - why do you have the One Bottle in the mastering setup? 

On the noise issue, is it for your own use?  I'd measure/worry about the noise at the kinds of levels you normally use when working.  Some compressor have shedloads of in and out gain that if you were to open it all up would cause a whole lotta noise.

I'd be worried about the Behringer converters, first thing I'd do is compare a track in the box to a track playing in the analogue loop with no processing, just out looped to in.  This will let you hear what you lose by the DA/AD roundtrip.

Cheers,
Ruairi
 
well how are you measuring your noise?  and yes why the one bottle and such? tube warmth I suppose?


I would first eliminate all the gear and do a loop which was suggested. then add one by one until you find your problem. As you compress and then add make up gain if the noise is there, you will just amplify the noise. so start from the top and add one at a time until you start really noticing it.

I would say that because it is a mastering setup, then any noise is not acceptable at all...
 
I'm curious too, how low can we go (S/N) with analog gear? (tubes or SS). ??? My sound card had -111db noise floor, after come trough my summing mixer it became -107dB A-weight. (RMAA)..
 
The theoretical noise floor is down around -130 dBu, but it is worth keeping in mind that any practical sound source picked up by a microphone and run through a preamp will get a few tens of dB gain applied to that theoretical noise floor, not to mention room noise etc.

Another tidbit about noise measurements, adding two -111dBu(?) noise sources together increases 3 dB to -108dBu. So your -107 measured suggests the mixer is also down around -110dBu or so.

I suspect that is quiet enough in practice.

JR
 
Nice John, is noise level always the same as dynamic range?(+). It's fun playing with RMAA and make adjustment here and there. The hardest thing to do is eliminating that 50hz (and it's harmonic) alpen mountain. Even a pair of wire at the input of my soundcard can make them visible (no other gears turn on)
 
simonsez said:
Nice John, is noise level always the same as dynamic range?(+). It's fun playing with RMAA and make adjustment here and there. The hardest thing to do is eliminating that 50hz (and it's harmonic) alpen mountain. Even a pair of wire at the input of my soundcard can make them visible (no other gears turn on)

No.. Dynamic range is the ratio between noise floor and loudest peak output level.

Noise level is just a level measurement relative to some nominal voltage reference (like 1V or .775V). Only if that 0dB reference happens to be full scale output, like some digital system meters, would that noise measure (below full scale) also represent dynamic range.

Note: S/N (signal to noise) is likewise often measured wrt a nominal 0VU level not the max output level, so care needs to be used if comparing measurements made below FS vs below nominal. They could be as much as 20dB different.

JR
 
JohnRoberts said:
Noise level is just a level measurement relative to some nominal voltage reference (like 1V or .775V). Only if that 0dB reference happens to be full scale output, like some digital system meters, would that noise measure (below full scale) also represent dynamic range.

Note: S/N (signal to noise) is likewise often measured wrt a nominal 0VU level not the max output level, so care needs to be used if comparing measurements made below FS vs below nominal. They could be as much as 20dB different.

JR

That's why i always got the same value between noise level and dynamic range, because my FS=nominal 0VU? ???
 
Depends on what you're mastering, doesn't it? I often mix down to tape, which doesn't get much better than -60db (without using noisereduction), and for any kind of smashed music (pop/rock/house) this is good enough if you watch your levels carefully. Mastering highly dynamic stuff like classical or soundtracks is different, of course.


And I'd worry about the Behringer converters, too.
 
living sounds said:
Depends on what you're mastering, doesn't it? I often mix down to tape, which doesn't get much better than -60db (without using noisereduction), and for any kind of smashed music (pop/rock/house) this is good enough if you watch your levels carefully. Mastering highly dynamic stuff like classical or soundtracks is different, of course.


And I'd worry about the Behringer converters, too.

-60dB? that's pretty high....what do you mean by behringer thing?
 
To everyone that little behringer thing is called a http://www.behringer.com/EN/Products/FCA202.aspx i know it is not the best out thier .

Theirs know real spec on the a/d convertors  :D.

so i am trying to understand the mastering process a bit , i have read a lot of the net and gone on to some mastering forums .


so i got a few ?


1} what is a nice level to keep the perceived RMS at  -14 t0 -9 

2) why when i keep the RMS at -9 level the program material sounds distorted  , am i hitting the convertor to hard?

cheers

skal1
 
meters are only a guide but the only way to really know is to listen. If Average level is -9 and it sounds distorted I would suspect you are hitting the analog side too hard. Analog has less headroom then digital and would most likely distort first
 
IMHO It's hard to get material up to -8 RMS with a single compressor/limiter. If you can mess around in T-Racks, see if you can't better it with your analog gear. Or just use the brick wall in your software to bring up the RMS after you have a good balance with your analog gear. The One-Bottle is only going to add noise and your bus comp is probably working too hard doing the gluey thing.

Is the distortion the clipped waveform thing?

 

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