Update on "Sins of Commission" Tech Problem

[filkertom]

The person who originally heard the high-pitched noise seems to have better upper-register hearing than I do. He sent me a sample, slowed down, so that the noise he heard was more in human-hearing range. Now I hear what he's talking about it. Not sure what to do yet. Updates as warranted.

Comments

[patoadam]

Yes, I hear the whine when I play "The Very Secret Diary" at half-speed (using a program called "Transcribe!").

You could:

[bobmage.livejournal.com]

Arrange for free memberships to a firing range. :)

I have to wonder - is the noise in the original recording? It could be a digital "artifact", or there may have been a problem with the recording equipment in the first place, or a source of electrical noise in the building. You mentioned that is was on multiple tracks - were they all recorded the same day/with the same equipment?

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

Flourescent bulbs and CRT monitors create barely-above-humanrange hums. LCD monitors have some noise from their backlight power supplies - they are better but not silent. Make a test recording with your monitor turned off just after you press RECORD and see if that is the source of your noise problem. I'll lay you odds that that's it.

Solutions: Lowpass filters on the mic before going to the mixer, a little plastic box and dampening foam around the monitor so air and noise don't get into the room (watch for ventilation though), or having everything but the keyboard and mouse in a seperate room and visible through a glass pane. Use regular bulbs instead of flourescent in the studio as well. Highly Cardoid mikes help also.

[kengr]

Actually, human hearing range varies a *lot*. For example, you see all ther stuff about human hearing going up to 20 kHz? Well, mine (when I was younger anyway) extended to around 30 Khz. Maybe more (that's as high as the test rig went).

Why? Likely because I'm an asthmatic. For some unknown reason there's a strong correlation between asthma and heariung the foes way above the normal range.

As I learned the hard way, I could hear ultrasonic motion detectors as well. And a lot of older monitors drove me *nuts* because I could hear the whine. Thankfully modern superVGA monitors are above even *my* range.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

My hearing went past 24Khz when I was young. They couldn't tell me what the top scale was because they couldn't test that high. I was able to tell when cameras were in a room (back in the vidicon days) because I could hear their sawtooth sweep generators. I could sense motion by hearing the "shadow" of someone occluding a flourescent light.

What it is today, I haven't a clue - 6 years around jet engines will tear the high end out of anybody's senses. I can still hear the CRT sawtooth generators in computer monitors, but I have to be within 9 feet of them.