Hi folks - I’m a voice actor with home setup but I’ve been having a noise floor that’s too loud - when recording silence it’s above -60db (around -54 to -48) and also a mic that’s too quiet - around -24 to around -18db . I am just required if I home record to send wav files to a sound engineer - but am aware the raw audio with these levels is less than ideal - I would like to aim for -60db for silence and voice around -10db.
I went to a friend’s place who has a home studio to test it to see where in the chain the issue was before changing/ buying new equipment
I use audacity for recording, have an Asus UX5400E Notebook running windows 11. My mic is AT2020. Interface is M Track Solo connecting mic via XLR, phantom power on.
What we found - my M audio interface makes the mic a lot quieter than their scarlett solo - the mic is fine when used with their scarlett solo volume wise - so first step is to buy a new interface - all good
BUT - the other issue is still the noise floor - when we recorded using my mic/ their interface on audacity on both computers (they are using a Mac computer) their noise floor for silence was acceptable - around -60db whereas on my laptop it was still too high.
I can’t figure out how to resolve this - I’ve switched off the windows setting of auto noise reduction to no avail. Input mic volume on audacity is 100 as is mic settings on Windows.
I uninstalled and reinstalled audacity in case that was the issue but same thing - I tried recording with laptop plugged into power and not - no difference
So my conclusion is there’s a setting somewhere on my laptop that’s causing this as we’ve ruled out software , mic and interface issues by testing it all on their set up too.
I know noise floor on audacity is higher than on Audition (they normally use Audition) but I’m a bit stumped - I want to make sure I’m sending a raw file to a sound engineer that’s acceptable to work with
There is a little electronic magic in there. Normally, you can split a system up into analog and digital. You only collect “noise” on the analog side. The digital side ones and zeros stay ones and zeros until you change them.
There are odd combinations. Condenser microphones such as your 2020 need “phantom power” to work. That’s the “48V” setting in your system.
The microphone receives the 48 volts from the three-pin XLR connection and sends it up to the little round condenser behind the grill—hence the name. Your voice hits the condenser, movies it, and changes the voltage a little. The change goes down to a teeny-tiny preamp (also in the head). The preamp buffers the sound and ships the boosted voice down to the Solo which converts it to much higher production volume, ditigizes it, and ships it to the computer.
The 48v phantom power from the Solo is being generated from the computer 5 volts. If there’s anything wrong with the 5 volts, the phantom power could become gritty and noisy. The phantom power is directly competing with your voice at the condenser.
(fffffff, shshshsh).
That can give you an entire microphone system that changes noise depending on the computer it’s plugged into.
Sometimes this can change when you plug a laptop into the wall. Sometimes not, but that’s a good call.
You could plug your 2020 into a small sound mixer plugged into the wall (or batteries). Turn the 48v on. Digitize that sound.
This is why I’m a fan of stand-alone sound recorders.
USB power is often noisy, with or without the phantom power issue. Sometimes that noise gets into the preamp where it’s amplified. It’s usually a high-frequency whine.
An interface or USB mixer should eliminate that problem.
That’s an unusual problem with a condenser mic (assuming you are talking with a strong-confident voice, relatively close to the mic) so I don’t know why that’s happening. It’s common with a dynamic or ribbon mic.
Thank you for this - would getting a usb hub powered by the mains minimise the sound?
I’ve seen some hubs that connect to laptop via usb c port - my question then would be would the interface be recognised & allow input if it was going via usb c rather than my standard usb port.
My sound level when speaking is between -12 and -6 with gain set as per photo attached - around 25 past if it was a clock face
We did keep it around. This was a thing that Steve whipped up as a “Formal” 100Hz high pass filter. It’s a cousin to the noise filters used in field broadcasting.
No offense … but you mentioned the Scarlett Solo. If using Windows, Focusrites were always terrible with Solos because of a Nvidia / other driver issue. Dealt with it too. Ended up switching up to PreSonus universal, and voila. NO MORE Latency/interference.
Noise floor frequencies responded perfectly to Audacity upgrades/changes. Mine usually set around -30 to 40, which isn’t unusual for some Windows laptops. Hope I’ve helped!
