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> A noise gate does not remove hiss or static, it simply reduces the volume of the signal when it gets below a certain level. But the end result is with a conf

by nickjj 7y ago

> A noise gate does not remove hiss or static, it simply reduces the volume of the signal when it gets below a certain level. But the end result is with a configured noise gate the audio coming out will not appear to have as much hiss or room noise. Check out the Youtube video I linked of his. It's super noticeable. With Sony MDR-V6 headphones, I hear a huge amount of hiss in his audio. To the point where it's distracting and drowns out his voice. I'm not trying to pick on you or him, but if I go to your most recent Youtube video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lf6dwipRYg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lf6dwipRYg, you can very much hear the same type of hiss within the first few seconds. I can't say for what what it is, but it sounds like your computer fan is spinning at 50% and it very much comes through. At about the 16:22 mark in the video, your fans appear to be spinning at 100% because it's much louder than before you started coding. It sounds like your computer is about to launch into space. It looks like you have the same mic too. I'm not saying the mic is bad, it's a really good mic. I just think the OP should have talked more about one of the biggest things that will kill a recording, especially when talking about "professional podcasting" and recommending high end gear. For comparison, here's something I recorded with the AT2005 + DBX 286s acting as a noise gate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Xd84hlIjkI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Xd84hlIjkI There's no software processing here either and my room is not treated with acoustic panels. In fact, my office is almost a worst case scenario. It's a wide open empty room with hardwood floors, angled ceilings and almost no furniture or rugs. I have super loud computer fans too and I'm right next to a window. Even at maximum volume (unrealistically loud) there's pretty much no hiss or room noise. At least nothing I can hear with the same Sony MDR-V6 headphones. I'm sure I could get similar results with the Shure mic too (using the DBX), but I'm happy with the AT2005. If I ever upgrade mics in the future it would be to a shotgun mic so it's out of frame.

davzie 7y ago
A more directional and less sensitive mic like the NTG-2 may work better with some dampening on the walls or by adding a carpet. Additionally if you can't fix the room you can use a plugin to help reduce noise in dialog, something like Izotope RX7 will do a good job of doing this, but fixing the room should always be the first step. I've used both the SM7B and the NTG-2 and I would record vocals all day with the SM7B if the room was in a good condition to do so or I was recording actual singing vocals. Otherwise I'd just use the NTG-2 which with it's highly directional nature is pretty good at removing a lot of other background noise.
- kwerk 7y ago
  Does the NTG-2 work well in a desk setup with minimizing typing? I’m looking to find a better quality mic (blue yeti now) that does better at minimizing keystroke sound.
  - nickjj 7y ago
    The problem with the NTG-2 is it sounds reasonable enough when you have nothing being compared to it, but when you put it side by side with a decent dynamic microphone where you can listen to each one in an A / B test then it falls apart due to sounding super muddy and thin. It's something you can pick out in a blind test 100 out of 100 times if you have decent headphones and there's nothing you can do in post-processing to fix it. Shotgun mics with a very good dynamic range and a pleasant tone tend to be pretty expensive. Usually in the $1,400+ range. Compared to something like the AT2005 which is a dynamic mic and is $80, but now it sits in front of your face. This video has a pretty decent comparison of a high quality dynamic microphone to a $300 shotgun mic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiYEX-omlFk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiYEX-omlFk. It has both talking and typing tests. It's not the NTG-2 shotgun mic tho, it's the Deity-S. But it does serve as a decent base line comparison of how much worse a shotgun mic sounds unless you go up to the very high end.
JshWright 7y ago
> But the end result is with a configured noise gate the audio coming out will not appear to have as much hiss or room noise. > Check out the Youtube video I linked of his. It's super noticeable. With Sony MDR-V6 headphones, I hear a huge amount of hiss in his audio. To the point where it's distracting and drowns out his voice. If the noise floor is high enough that it interferes with the actual signal, a gate is just going to make it more annoying to listen to (as you hear the noise cut in and out).
- devmunchies 7y ago
  > a gate is just going to make it more annoying to listen to (as you hear the noise cut in and out) my experience as well. its best to just use an EQ to dampen all high frequencies over a threshold so that its not distracting. It would like this in the EQ: https://dt7v1i9vyp3mf.cloudfront.net/styles/news_large/s3/imagelibrary/E/EQ1highandlowpass-8levKnGVgWnUyS81sMvnepjqMnAcBP9m.jpg https://dt7v1i9vyp3mf.cloudfront.net/styles/news_large/s3/im... I was a recording engineer at a TV studio before I got into programming. When we used gates it was very shallow, long compression so you couldn't notice abrupt changes.
adamwathan 7y ago
What you're hearing in that video is a space heater running in my office — I don't put a ton of effort into making everything perfect for ad hoc live streams. A proper screencast is probably the better thing to judge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff_n_QClipQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff_n_QClipQ I'm sure you'll find something to nitpick over but I think it's pretty good for a programming tutorial recorded in my home office.
- nickjj 7y ago
  > I'm sure you'll find something to nitpick over but I think it's pretty good for a programming tutorial recorded in my home office. It's not nit picking. The video you linked sounds much much better and really really good. Besides turning off your heater did you do any other processing with software afterwards? Such as using your video editor's noise cancellation filters or a proper DAW? I'm just asking because taking a quick skim through your videos, your live stream videos all have some form of hiss but your shorter non-live screencasts do not which makes me think additional post-processing is being done on them. But I think the OP's channel intro video and your live stream video is a good example of the importance of managing background noise, which isn't mentioned in the article at all but it's probably the most important thing to do and you can't just blindly throw money at the problem to fix it with no prior knowledge. For a professional set up, it seems like a no brainer to want to filter out background and room noise before it even hits your computer. That's some of what the DBX does. This way the amount of effort it takes to do a live stream or screencast is the same when it comes to audio quality. You just turn it on and hit record, and you're done. It also works the same in OBS, your video recording tool of choice, zoom, hangouts, skype or any program that records your mic. You mentioned being an audio engineer. Surely you know how important having a good audio source is, and how time consuming the editing process is when you need to fiddle with cleaning things up after the fact. Configuring all of this stuff to happen live is something I did after recording about 20 videos. Now 400+ videos later I couldn't imagine having to do post-processing on videos just to clean up audio.
  - leviathant 7y ago
    I listened to the first clip expecting it to be much worse than it ended up being. I'm listening on HD280pros, the headphones I keep at work, although I use Sony MDR-7506s when I'm in front of my audio gear. The noise floor sounded more to me like bad gain staging than it sounds like fans and room noise. And I honestly think that the majority of people who watch that video aren't going to notice. I think you're too close to the process. I would venture that almost no one else in this thread would watch that video and call that an all-caps HUGE amount of noise. A long time ago, I was mixing down some rough recordings of my band, and as I was putting everything together, I kept hearing the squeak of my cheap kick pedal every time I hit the bass drum. It was incessant, and it didn't help that I typically played at upwards of 160bpm. I tried EQ, notch filtering, all kinds of things available to me back in 2002 to try and get rid of that squeak without destroying the other things coming through the room mic, and I just couldn't do it, so I had to leave it in. No one else in the band could hear what I was talking about. On my way home, I put in a CD by the band Cake that I'd had for a couple of years at this point, and I had heard probably a hundred times before. And even though it had never stood out to me at all before, all of the sudden the only thing I could hear on this professionally recorded album was THE SQUEAK OF THE KICK PEDAL. It was absolutely maddening. I went on an electronic music binge for a couple of months after that, just to cleanse my palette.
modernerd 7y ago
What USB interface do you use with the DBX 286?
- nickjj 7y ago
  I use a Scarlett 2i2. I prefer it over the Solo because the input jack supports XLR and TRS (the 2i2 has a combo port where the Solo is only XLR). For vocals or recording yourself with a mic this isn't a big deal because mics use XLR connections but if you ever wanted to screw around with a guitar or another instrument then you'd be using a TRS cable. Also for podcasters, if you ever end up doing a live show with a guest, having the 2 inputs is nice because then each of you can plug in your own microphone. You can't do that with the Solo. The Solo is $110 and the 2i2 is $135. Given the above I don't mind spending the extra $25 for the 2i2. The only downside I've seen with Scarlett's interfaces so far is that the USB connection is very sensitive. Every 6 months or so I have to reconnect it otherwise nothing works. This is with the 2nd generation interface. They just came out with a 3rd generation not too long ago, so maybe that has a more robust USB connection (I haven't tried it). I've had my 2nd gen for a few years and it's still going strong, you just need to be aware of the USB connection. Overall it's decent. I haven't had any real complaints, other than maybe its pre-amp tends to slightly boost high end frequencies but I don't think it's worth replacing it for that alone. A lot of this stuff comes down to combinations of gear too, not just 1 piece. For example if the pre-amp boots highs and your natural voice is deep, and your mic is pretty neutral then things will sound good in the end. If you have a high pitch voice with boosted highs on your pre-amp and mic then you might sound a little thin. You could get a shotgun to work in an untreated room, but the problem with shotguns is everything in the $200-500 range sounds pretty bad when you directly compare it to a dynamic mic. I have not experimented first hand with a bunch of shotguns so I wouldn't feel comfortable recommending anything, especially not in the $1,000+ to $2,000+ range. I would start with this video from Curtis Judd https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7rfwCFjBDg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7rfwCFjBDg. It's a shotgun showdown from 2020 at various price points. Curtis is a really knowledge dude when it comes to audio and his channel has a bunch of great comparisons and tips. He has some videos where he compares dynamic mics to shotguns too.
  - 7y ago

by nickjj 7y ago

davzie 7y ago

A more directional and less sensitive mic like the NTG-2 may work better with some dampening on the walls or by adding a carpet. Additionally if you can't fix the room you can use a plugin to help reduce noise in dialog, something like Izotope RX7 will do a good job of doing this, but fixing the room should always be the first step. I've used both the SM7B and the NTG-2 and I would record vocals all day with the SM7B if the room was in a good condition to do so or I was recording actual singing vocals. Otherwise I'd just use the NTG-2 which with it's highly directional nature is pretty good at removing a lot of other background noise.

kwerk 7y ago
Does the NTG-2 work well in a desk setup with minimizing typing? I’m looking to find a better quality mic (blue yeti now) that does better at minimizing keystroke sound.
- nickjj 7y ago
  The problem with the NTG-2 is it sounds reasonable enough when you have nothing being compared to it, but when you put it side by side with a decent dynamic microphone where you can listen to each one in an A / B test then it falls apart due to sounding super muddy and thin. It's something you can pick out in a blind test 100 out of 100 times if you have decent headphones and there's nothing you can do in post-processing to fix it. Shotgun mics with a very good dynamic range and a pleasant tone tend to be pretty expensive. Usually in the $1,400+ range. Compared to something like the AT2005 which is a dynamic mic and is $80, but now it sits in front of your face. This video has a pretty decent comparison of a high quality dynamic microphone to a $300 shotgun mic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiYEX-omlFk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiYEX-omlFk. It has both talking and typing tests. It's not the NTG-2 shotgun mic tho, it's the Deity-S. But it does serve as a decent base line comparison of how much worse a shotgun mic sounds unless you go up to the very high end.

JshWright 7y ago

> But the end result is with a configured noise gate the audio coming out will not appear to have as much hiss or room noise. > Check out the Youtube video I linked of his. It's super noticeable. With Sony MDR-V6 headphones, I hear a huge amount of hiss in his audio. To the point where it's distracting and drowns out his voice. If the noise floor is high enough that it interferes with the actual signal, a gate is just going to make it more annoying to listen to (as you hear the noise cut in and out).

devmunchies 7y ago
> a gate is just going to make it more annoying to listen to (as you hear the noise cut in and out) my experience as well. its best to just use an EQ to dampen all high frequencies over a threshold so that its not distracting. It would like this in the EQ: https://dt7v1i9vyp3mf.cloudfront.net/styles/news_large/s3/imagelibrary/E/EQ1highandlowpass-8levKnGVgWnUyS81sMvnepjqMnAcBP9m.jpg https://dt7v1i9vyp3mf.cloudfront.net/styles/news_large/s3/im... I was a recording engineer at a TV studio before I got into programming. When we used gates it was very shallow, long compression so you couldn't notice abrupt changes.

adamwathan 7y ago

What you're hearing in that video is a space heater running in my office — I don't put a ton of effort into making everything perfect for ad hoc live streams. A proper screencast is probably the better thing to judge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff_n_QClipQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff_n_QClipQ I'm sure you'll find something to nitpick over but I think it's pretty good for a programming tutorial recorded in my home office.

nickjj 7y ago
> I'm sure you'll find something to nitpick over but I think it's pretty good for a programming tutorial recorded in my home office. It's not nit picking. The video you linked sounds much much better and really really good. Besides turning off your heater did you do any other processing with software afterwards? Such as using your video editor's noise cancellation filters or a proper DAW? I'm just asking because taking a quick skim through your videos, your live stream videos all have some form of hiss but your shorter non-live screencasts do not which makes me think additional post-processing is being done on them. But I think the OP's channel intro video and your live stream video is a good example of the importance of managing background noise, which isn't mentioned in the article at all but it's probably the most important thing to do and you can't just blindly throw money at the problem to fix it with no prior knowledge. For a professional set up, it seems like a no brainer to want to filter out background and room noise before it even hits your computer. That's some of what the DBX does. This way the amount of effort it takes to do a live stream or screencast is the same when it comes to audio quality. You just turn it on and hit record, and you're done. It also works the same in OBS, your video recording tool of choice, zoom, hangouts, skype or any program that records your mic. You mentioned being an audio engineer. Surely you know how important having a good audio source is, and how time consuming the editing process is when you need to fiddle with cleaning things up after the fact. Configuring all of this stuff to happen live is something I did after recording about 20 videos. Now 400+ videos later I couldn't imagine having to do post-processing on videos just to clean up audio.
- leviathant 7y ago
  I listened to the first clip expecting it to be much worse than it ended up being. I'm listening on HD280pros, the headphones I keep at work, although I use Sony MDR-7506s when I'm in front of my audio gear. The noise floor sounded more to me like bad gain staging than it sounds like fans and room noise. And I honestly think that the majority of people who watch that video aren't going to notice. I think you're too close to the process. I would venture that almost no one else in this thread would watch that video and call that an all-caps HUGE amount of noise. A long time ago, I was mixing down some rough recordings of my band, and as I was putting everything together, I kept hearing the squeak of my cheap kick pedal every time I hit the bass drum. It was incessant, and it didn't help that I typically played at upwards of 160bpm. I tried EQ, notch filtering, all kinds of things available to me back in 2002 to try and get rid of that squeak without destroying the other things coming through the room mic, and I just couldn't do it, so I had to leave it in. No one else in the band could hear what I was talking about. On my way home, I put in a CD by the band Cake that I'd had for a couple of years at this point, and I had heard probably a hundred times before. And even though it had never stood out to me at all before, all of the sudden the only thing I could hear on this professionally recorded album was THE SQUEAK OF THE KICK PEDAL. It was absolutely maddening. I went on an electronic music binge for a couple of months after that, just to cleanse my palette.

modernerd 7y ago

What USB interface do you use with the DBX 286?

nickjj 7y ago
I use a Scarlett 2i2. I prefer it over the Solo because the input jack supports XLR and TRS (the 2i2 has a combo port where the Solo is only XLR). For vocals or recording yourself with a mic this isn't a big deal because mics use XLR connections but if you ever wanted to screw around with a guitar or another instrument then you'd be using a TRS cable. Also for podcasters, if you ever end up doing a live show with a guest, having the 2 inputs is nice because then each of you can plug in your own microphone. You can't do that with the Solo. The Solo is $110 and the 2i2 is $135. Given the above I don't mind spending the extra $25 for the 2i2. The only downside I've seen with Scarlett's interfaces so far is that the USB connection is very sensitive. Every 6 months or so I have to reconnect it otherwise nothing works. This is with the 2nd generation interface. They just came out with a 3rd generation not too long ago, so maybe that has a more robust USB connection (I haven't tried it). I've had my 2nd gen for a few years and it's still going strong, you just need to be aware of the USB connection. Overall it's decent. I haven't had any real complaints, other than maybe its pre-amp tends to slightly boost high end frequencies but I don't think it's worth replacing it for that alone. A lot of this stuff comes down to combinations of gear too, not just 1 piece. For example if the pre-amp boots highs and your natural voice is deep, and your mic is pretty neutral then things will sound good in the end. If you have a high pitch voice with boosted highs on your pre-amp and mic then you might sound a little thin. You could get a shotgun to work in an untreated room, but the problem with shotguns is everything in the $200-500 range sounds pretty bad when you directly compare it to a dynamic mic. I have not experimented first hand with a bunch of shotguns so I wouldn't feel comfortable recommending anything, especially not in the $1,000+ to $2,000+ range. I would start with this video from Curtis Judd https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7rfwCFjBDg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7rfwCFjBDg. It's a shotgun showdown from 2020 at various price points. Curtis is a really knowledge dude when it comes to audio and his channel has a bunch of great comparisons and tips. He has some videos where he compares dynamic mics to shotguns too.
- 7y ago