Squee?

[filkertom]

Serious tech question: Has anyone noticed the high-pitched noise that some people heard on The Last Hero On Earth on any of the iTom songs? Or the new version of Rich Fantasy Lives, or the recording of cadhla's parody of it?

Comments

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

Not me.

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

I haven't. And I usually catch stuff like that...so I think that whatever problem you had with your microphone setup is excised.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Well, what I did was: remove the vocal recording from the desktop and do it on the laptop; completely shut down the desktop (with its 500W power supply); and shut off the two fluorescent lights in the computer room and the adjacent area. I still get some room noise, 'cause the AKG C1000S is a fairly sensitive mic, but I've been looking for the whine, and I hadn't found it, and the other stuff can be for the most part gated and EQ'd out.

Kee-ryste. Sounds as if I know what I'm doin' or somethin'. :)

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

Kee-ryste. Sounds as if I know what I'm doin' or somethin'. :)

I know that feeling. Congrats on tracking it down.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I'm still not sure that I have... but it did seem to be electrical in nature, which is why I removed all of the potential electrical noise from the system while doing vocals. It may have been a combination. But it doesn't matter. It's not a particular inconvenience, and if it's gone, it's gone.

[mdlbear]

My ears wouldn't hear it in any case, but try running the tracks trough an FFT program. Not only will that tell you quickly which tracks are affected, but the frequency may give you a clue about the origin.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

My biggest suspicion has always been my 500W power supply, which I got to replace the 350W that originally came with the desktop case. That PS was blown out by CD burning one busy weekend. After I replaced it with the current Big Sucker I discovered some electrical interference in my headphones when I had the microphones' phantom power box (M-Audio Audio Buddy) in its previous usual place on the desk. The interference seemed to go away when I moved the Audio Buddy several feet away from the case, but apparently just being plugged into the sound card was more than close enough.

[giza.livejournal.com]

Can you provide me with the following?

- Links to the songs in quesiton
- Time offset when this happened in the songs?
- Name and version number of whatever was used to play them
- Name and model number of whatever speakers were used to play them

Thanks, but I don't need tech help

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I'm just curious if those who heard it before can hear it now. It was on The Last Hero On Earth and Sins of Commission. Most of the instances when I'm singing. For more details, see here (http://filkertom.livejournal.com/367105.html), here (http://filkertom.livejournal.com/367717.html), here (http://filkertom.livejournal.com/368067.html), and here (http://filkertom.livejournal.com/369935.html).

Re: Thanks, but I don't need tech help

[giza.livejournal.com]

Oh, I see.

One thing you could do on the current and past songs is to run them through a spectrum analyzer (there are software-based ones out there) and see if there's any constant levels of sound at at high frequencies. If there are, they can probably be filtered out without affecting the rest of the recording too badly.

Re: Thanks, but I don't need tech help

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

The problem seemed to be around 15 Khz. I'm not detecting it now, but I couldn't hear it before, so I wasn't sure if it was still there or I was fooling myself or what. As Stewart at Oasis said, everything he tried sucked the vitality out of the recording, so finally I just let it be, determined to get as much electrical noise out of my vocal recording loop as possible. That's what I'm trying to figure out here, as I never heard the original noise except by dramatically dropping the pitch of a track.

Re: Thanks, but I don't need tech help

[giza.livejournal.com]

What instruments are being used for the pieces?

Were these all done in the same venue with the same equipment, by any chance?

I SAID, Thanks, but I don't need tech help :)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

All the instrumentation on those albums is either internally generated MIDI, loops, or both. No environmental noise to pick up, because all the environments are virtual.

Re: I SAID, Thanks, but I don't need tech help :)

[giza.livejournal.com]

Sorry. I'm a geek. Solving technical problems is in my genes. :-)

Re: I SAID, Thanks, but I don't need tech help :)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

'Sokay. It's just that everyone has wanted to help, and all they need are the entire technical specifications and environmental conditions under which I recorded anything in the past two years. All I want to know is if the sound that was there is there on more recent recordings, i.e., have the steps I've taken to clean up the electrical noise worked.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

I noticed a definate difference in microphones on the new version of Rich Fantasy Lives between the two phones. The other voice has the lowpass set very high while yours seems to be around 5khz. But no, I didn't notice a drone high pitch on it or on TLHOE. I'll play the CD on the main stereo tonight and see if the computer fan is masking it when played on the pc.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I actually left Rob's vocals relatively unprocessed, as I had no idea of the circumstances under which he recorded that and didn't want to mess anything up. I presumed the noise he uploaded me was the noise he wanted. A little noise gate, a little compression. Not much of either.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

Listened to several tracks on TLHOE - no monitor whine or flourescent buzz to report.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

Ah, that would explain the high frequencies on his vocals then - the lowpass was not there at all.

[wormquartet.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to pretend I know what I'm doing...just got a brand-spankin' new large diaphragm condensor mic and a tube preamp myself. My new songs seem to be seriously exposing the limitations of the $50 dynamic Peavey I've clung to for the last 7 years (or possibly it's just my voice...but I'm really hoping it's the mic.) Now all I need is for my wife to come home from work and watch our son for a while so I can friggin' PLAY WITH IT!!! OH GAAAAAAAAAAWD I HATE IT WHEN NEW TOYS SIT THERE UNUSED AND IT LOOKS SO PRETTY SO PRETTY SO VERY VERY VERY PRETTY...

-=ShoEboX=-

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

CALM! Calm, Shoebox! Here, here's a nice automated Mackie mixing board to chew on. There, isn't that better? MMMMM-num-num-num-num-num-num....

[lukeski.livejournal.com]

I hear it when I listen to it in my van's CD player, but I don't think I hear it anywhere else.

Re: Thanks, but I don't need tech help

[kengr]

If it's at 15 kHz, odds are strong that it's the flyback transformer in the monitor on the desktop.

try just shutting that off. Or switch to an LCD monitor. Or even just to a newer monitor that runs at a higher frequency.

15 kHz isn't likely for old fashioned fluorescent "tubes" but might be possible for compact fluorescent bulbs. And the power supply is still a possibility as are some frequencies on the desktop motherboard.

BTW, if you are burning large numbers of CDs yourself, it might pay to do what I did after a software update to something else "broke" the driver for the internal CD-RW drive in my old desktop. I bought an external CD copier that would double as an external CD-RW.

So if I need to burn *a* CD, I hook to the computer. If I need copies, I disconnect it and switch it to copier mode. Stick the original in the upper driver, a blank in the lower and in a minute or two I have a copy. Feed in another blank and press the button for another.

Burning at 52x without tying up (or even loading down) the computer is great.

That's A Whole Lot Of Impractical

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

My 4-year-old ViewSonic CRT is not long for this world, so after it goes and I get an LCD I'll try it. Until then, it's a little difficult to manage the transport controls without the monitor being on, and more than a little annoying to turn it on and off after every single transport command or [OK][CANCEL].

My original power supply in the case burned out because of CD burning. I have been looking at externals for awhile now. None yet.