what's your noise floor?

[AK]

I'm wondering if my noise floor is too high so was just curious as to the level of other peoples. What's the best way to calculate it?

First of all, I'm only using a small mixer, it's an Alesis multimix 8 USB fx ( I have another Behringer one, slightly larger and quieter but a few of the CTRL room and tape in/out are knackered so it's just used to function as an line mixer for all outs on my Machinedrum and its outs go into a stereo in on the Alesis ) Anyway, the Machinedrum produces a tiny amount of hiss so I had the volume on that down and just measured the noise floor as everything was before I recorded some drums.
So monitoring in Wavelab with just the mixer on produces a noise signal which fluctuates between -63db and -68db.

Currently, the main mix out level ( which goes to my card ) is at 12, o'clock as is the channel with the MD in it. I tend to leave it there and adjust the level of the synth or machinedrum in this case and I have the volume on that at about 2 o'clock which gives a recording of about -4db at the highest peaks and maybe the meat of the signal around -9db, I don't really want to max the volume out on the MD as it seems to distort a little ( bear in mind I have only had it a few days so I don't know it yet ) but anyway, does that noise floor seem a bit high?

Also, the mixer has been loaned to me for however long etc and there's no manual with that and bearing in mind mixers confuse the hell outta me, I'm probably not helping myself with how I have set it up. ( I haven't got a USB lead that connects to this, so haven't tried that yet ) so I'm using it like an analog mixer. Main mix out to s/card in, then s/card out to tape in on the mixer. I haven't used the tape out to s/card in as I don't have any spare RCA leads.

I just wanna use the optimum setting and best signal to noise ratio but I'm getting pissed off now and tengled in frigging leads every five minutes..

[steevio]

with everything on my mixer at the levels i record at, thats my modular, moog, 909, mbase, 303, effects, everything...

my noise floor is -68 dB
thats totally acceptable to me.

i record with an output level on my mixer at peaking at +9 dB, with the meat at +7 dB

record peaking at -3 dB in Soundforge

[AK]

Seems I'm in an ok zone then, I don't mind a bit of noise to be honest, I much prefer it to ITB recordings and total digital silence, I'd imagine it would be quieter with the USB to way thing but I just downloaded a PDF for the mixer and via USB you can only record at 16-bit/44.1khz, dunno why that it but I usually opt for 24-bit/44.1khz.

Anyway, cheers for that, was just wondering what the average sort of level was with people, never really took much notice before as the other mixer is actually quieter.

[steevio]

i would record at the highest bit depth that you can.

i always record at a minimum of 24 bit.

it might be worth checking if you have any particularly noisey stuff going thru your mixer, and gate it.

[simonb]

I'm curious about this, I'll test it once I'm plugged in again. There's been a definite increase since I started incorporating hardware, it was never really something I thought about when I was ITB but now I'm wary of turning gains too high etc.

[s.k.]

if you are using hissy hardware to record mono stuff (like kicks & bass) there's this trick you can do - set it to record on two channels on your daw. channel 1 hard left, then sum to mono (center). channel 2 hard right, then sum to mono (center). on the hardware - pan your material hard left. this way the second channel phase inverts only the hiss, eliminating it completely. there u go zero noisefloor.

how to in ableton: arm two channels to record (Audio From: Ext.In / Monitor: In). on each of the two channels, place two utilities. channel one: first utility - Panorama:50L / second utility - Width:0%. channel two: first utility - Panorama:50R / second utility - Width:0%.

works only for mono stuff, but hey it's something.

[AK]

Cool sh!t, I've done stuff like this before ( not for getting rid of hiss, other stuff for isolating certain sounds etc ) but I'd actually forgot about this technique a while ago.

To be honest, I'm happy with the level of noise, it's just like a faint 'tsssss' hiss, and then level is low by comparing with others. In fact, I'd much prefer a 'fabric' on the background over digital ITB silence to be honest, I used to add noise when I was totally ITB as I found absolute silence unnatural and clinical/overly synthetic kinda thing.

With a different mixer and different kit ( Machinedrum ) I made some errors at first with levels, I had my Ctrl room out too loud and the patches/sequences on the MD were quiet ( by comparison with the factory patches ) so I was increasing the gain on that unit as well as the main mix fader on the Alesis mixer, all of which were contributing additional noise. Must admit, this was like 20 minutes of having both items , so now, after a week or so, I'm used to both to some degree and have found a decent recording level with an acceptable signal to noise ratio.

But, I'm copying that tip to notepad as I often do with useful stuff, memory like a Goldfish me so I tend to forget things I don't use on a daily basis.

[NoAffiliation]

i moved studios recently and the power in the new one gave me -112!! was -98 before that and god knows what before i started using a furman conditioner