Hello,
I’m using macOS Catalina version 10.15.7 and Audacity 2.4.0
I have a a Blue Yeti-not the pro-just the regular one I guess. I recorded one audiobook in a different location, moved, and now am having all sorts of technical difficulties and I’m not sure why. The two main culprits are this static sound and the high pitched beeping. My boyfriend said he can’t hear the beeps at all, even with headphones on so that just makes me feel crazy. For the Beep sample I said “Chapter 10: Information Everywhere” twice and I hear a beep on “information” both times. For the second sentence I hear an even louder beep on the word “shared.”
My Blue Yeti is plugged right into my mac through the USB port. I have a Boom arm, a shock mount, and a pop filter. For the static sample I have plugged and unplugged the different cords and it doesn’t seem to make a difference. The static goes in or out with no rhyme or reason as far as I can tell.
Thank you very much!!!
Erin
I can’t hear any beeps either, but there is a buzzy resonance at 7.4kHz & 12kHz,
which can be reduced by equalization …
I’m very flummoxed that you can’t hear the beeps either. I’ve been re-recording sections when I hear it. Do you think I should just pretend I don’t hear it and call it good? I’m asking sincerely. Do you hear the static going in and out on that static file?
May be my imagination, but sounds like a man saying “hello” at ~11 sec on the “static20secs” file.
It could be that the bleeps, (and “hello”), are via a cellphone (or wireless intercom) close to you.
Thank you for your replies. My cell phone is off and in a separate room when I record just to be super safe. This is probably a dumb question, but do you know if there is interference if I have my web browser open when recording? I like to keep it open (but at the bottom of my screen) with videos of pronunciations that I can reference. Thanks again.
Having other software (e.g. browser) running at the same time can cause Audacity to skip, i.e. missing little bits of words.
but that’s not the type of sound you posted: it would not be a continuous hiss with bursts of crackling.
You could try airplane mode, just to see if Wi-Fi is the source of the problem,
(Wi-Fi will check-in with the router, several times a minute, even when the browser is closed).
Which Mac?
No, I wouldn’t ignore either of those.
In fuzzy general terms, describe your old location and studio and your new one.
Koz
Everybody knows cellphones can radiate 3G, 4G, and 5G and the Bluetooth and WiFi can all radiate as well. That’s how these services talk to each other. It takes some doing to make a cellphone shut up.
But that’s not the only place you can get electrical interference. On a whim, I pushed a microphone right in front of an iPhone screen.
Sounds a lot like your noises except yours are quieter. Did you decide to read from an iPad? Those do it, too. Any time you get rapidly changing electric current in a wire, you can get noises like that. Like all the super tiny wires making your screen(s) light up.
Koz
To be clear. The cellphone screen isn’t making noise you can listen to with your ears. It’s making tiny electric and magnetic waves. Microphones work by changing your voice air pressure into electric and magnetic waves. The microphone can’t tell which one is which.
Koz
It’s a MacBook pro from 2012. I switched out for an internal solid-state drive a couple years ago. I’ll try turning off my web browser and switching to airplane mode, thanks. I feel silly for not having done that.
So you can hear the beeps Koz? Because I sent the clip to someone else and he couldn’t hear them either. I was about to submit this audiobook with some of the beeps in there now thinking people can’t hear them…
My old location was out in the country and it was pretty darn quiet. I had three mattresses standing up creating a booth and one mattress laying on top. Nothing behind me though. My new location is in a closet with a bunch of acoustic foam up, a clothes rack behind me, and a clothes rack I slide in front of the open doorway once I’m inside. Unfortunately the wall I’m speaking into is an exterior wall and it’s a much busier street than I hoped. I can definitely hear it on my recordings when cars go by and have been recording late at night because of it.
I’m reading right from my mac.
I started with my mac running on battery cuz I heard that having it plugged in can create weird noises but then it starts to get loud if it’s getting “overworked” so lately I’ve been recording with it plugged in and my mac stays quiet (to my knowledge.)
Last night I rearranged my headphone cord so it’s more out of the way and that seemed to help with the static. I’m considering buying a longer cord and zip tying it to my boom arm? I still heard the beeps last night but I’ll try airplane mode tonight.
So you can hear the beeps Koz?
No, but you’re using the wrong people. Get a young woman to listen to it. They have biologically better hearing than men of any age. And don’t submit anything you can’t personally vouch for.
that seemed to help with the static.
So your studio is smaller and more cramped than the old one? The microphone is closer to the screen than before?
It counts if you can make the noises worse. I know the goal is to make them vanish, but we don’t know where they’re coming from yet. Write down any change.
I started with my mac running on battery
If everything is perfect, you should be able to run the Mac on wall power forever. But. That can hide a bad laptop battery which can cause unstable sound problems, and it invites wall power trash into your show. I grew up on a farm and I could tell when the neighbors were in heavy power usage because it would put sparklies in our TV picture and buzz in the sound. We were on the same power pole.
Set up for a normal recording. Record a few clear words and turn the Yeti until it faces the laptop and push it close to the screen. Did the noise go nus? Did it change?
And just to cover it, you are using the “front” of the Yeti, right?
If your Yeti is old enough, your instructions don’t tell you where the front is until way in the back of the book.
Koz
the static has gone away THANK GOD I think my headphone cord was the culprit. I still hear the very high pitched beeping randomly tho and i had my phone off and bluetooth and WiFi off on my computer. Do you think it could be from the Blue Yeti?
Do you think it could be from the Blue Yeti?
I think it’s getting into the show by way of the Blue Yeti, but I think it’s just because it’s a sensitive microphone, not because it was made wrong or broken. It used to work perfectly in your larger studio, right?
I still hear the very high pitched beeping randomly
What happened when you tried getting the Yeti closer to the screen? Is the beeping quieter if you move it away?
Koz