32
There's a company called Real Traps whose main business is bass traps and acoustics. This is from their web site:
Note that RealTraps products are intended to improve the sound inside a room. They are not designed to prevent sound from traveling to other rooms, or reduce outside sounds from getting in. For that we recommend Green Glue and other products ...
31
'Gain' just means 'amount of amplification'. It can be applied at various stages in the signal chain between musical source and final playback.
The topic we're talking about is called 'Gain staging'. It basically means that at EVERY point where amplification takes place we should strive to keep the signal above the noise floor but below the overload level....
26
Noise cancellation never works on scales larger than the sound's wavelength, so it's only useful for headphones.
Modifying the hall physically is the only real solution to this problem.
Short of that, the first thing to try is indeed to bring the sound as directly to the audience as possible, by using a suitable PA arrangement. Big, single speakers located ...
19
Your guitar is picking up mains hum. This is very common, and as you correctly surmised is due to how the components are grounded and shielded.
Usually this is simple to fix. The first items to check are:
your guitar lead and amp - does the noise go away if you use different ones?
all solder joints. Are they all solid?
all components are grounded, with ...
15
In amplification jargon, all volume changes are described by the term "gain", where gain is the ratio of the input and output signals. In a lot of modern amplifier design, there are effectively 2 separate "gain stages" where signal amplification is performed: the input, or "preamp" stage, and the output or "power" stage. The input stage amplifies the ...
14
The noises are caused by electronics picking up wireless signals from your mobile phone and translating the interference into sound. Well-shielded circuits won't have this problem, but it's common in consumer electronics and some musical equipment, notably guitar leads. There's no damage to your equipment, and if the sound is a problem just keep the phone ...
12
Sites like this always get lots of questions about how to soundproof thin walls, and the answer is always that you can't do much. Soundproofing is achieved by having a lot of mass in the walls (and those foam panels you see in studios are about diffusing reflections, not soundproofing). So this means that you need to look for a house/apartment that's been ...
10
My guess is that the direction the finger is moving is not perpendicular to the fretboard. And so you are in effect plucking the string with the small bit of flesh caused by the indentation of the string itself.
When you fret the string, the string frets you, so to speak. The string creates an indentation in the surface of the fingertip which will recover ...
10
Obviously, headphones are the very first thing to recommend if you aren't already using them. A good pair of noise-cancelling headphones works both ways; you can be thumpin' it at 95dB and nobody but you will hear it.
The sound produced by you hitting a rubber pad with a drumstick is a dull thunk, typically quieter than an ordinary conversation. If you have ...
10
If you can't treat the room, you can try optimizing using the sound system and the band.
Control sound radiation so it beams as much as possible towards the audience and absorptive surfaces and away from any reflective surfaces.
Monitor wedges are the worst. They beam up and back directly at backwall and ceiling. Wedges have their place on large stages but ...
10
Electrical engineer here.
Gain is the ratio of the output signal magnitude to the input signal magnitude of an amplifier. In idealized circuits, as you turn the gain up, you increase this ratio and the signal's gain increases and it gets louder. Or you reduce the ratio and it gets softer. No distortion occurs.
However, in the real world, even well-designed ...
9
I know that sometimes for concerts there will be "shells" around the ensemble, curving down and around the group. This will help reduce any noise escaping backwards. Not knowing the venue, this may not be part of the problem.
It also depends on whether or not the ensemble is acoustic or electric. With electric you could point the speakers in different ...
9
You don't have to modify the room to add physical damping to it. Velvet drapes absorb a lot of sound, even when they don't actually cover any surface, and would be very sympathetic to the decor. A few loose rugs covering unused floor areas, where the audience isn't directly looking at them, would also help a lot. The drapes and rugs could be put in place ...
9
If you have a problem with "hiss" in a sound, then it's rarely something that needs to be solved with a narrow frequency peak: you more than likely just need to cutoff highs above a certain point. This isn't something that requires super precise EQing, it can be done on any modern amplifier by simply rolling off the "highs" on a multi-band EQ.
Having said ...
9
I think when an instrument doesn't have a clear pitch, the musician's go-to word is 'unpitched', rather than 'noise'. Noise in a musical context often refers to something extraneous or unwanted - e.g. when talking about fret noise, or a noisy amp.
However, you are quite right that the sound of many drums is essentially very like 'enveloped noise' - and from ...
8
As per the previous answers, there are electronic kits that are effectively silent, insofar as you only get the sound of a stick striking a rubber pad or, in the cases of some e-kits, mesh heads.
However, I'm an acoustic drummer and I've found playing on electronic kits to be problematic: they're invariably fixed to a frame, so you can be limited in where ...
7
Mesh should certainly be quieter, but to help save the sanity of your neighbours below, you will need to look at an isolated drum riser. Tennis balls could work, but more commonly you see neoprene pads as these do a very good job reducing transmission of vibrations.
Underneath that you could also use a square of carpet cut to the size of the riser as this ...
7
It's as I said in the comment:
Gain is referring to the input, volume to the output.
Volume is how loud the OUTPUT of the channel or amp is. It controls loudness, not tone.
Gain is how loud the INPUT of the channel or amp is. It controls tone, not loudness.
https://www.musicianonamission.com/gain-vs-volume/#targetText=Conclusion%3A%20Gain%20Vs%20Volume&...
6
Fingers can sometimes stick to strings if they do not have good calluses. The third and fourth fingers might have this problem more than the index and middle fingers because they do not get used as often. If you work on building up calluses on these fingers, the problem might lessen.
6
Sand. The Grateful Dead lined their space in sand, Moby encased his NY apartment in sand. If you are on the second floor, put your set on a sandbox. Line the walls with sand bags. It's cheap, portable, labor intensive, works great.
You'd probably get a kick out of this article, sums up the plight of the modern drummer well: http://www.thestranger.com/...
6
I'm hesitant to add an answer, but I don't have enough rep to just comment. In any event, no, that doesn't seem "normal". :)
Couldn't tell from the video because your fret hand was out if the frame for most for the video - but are your hands coming off (completely) of the strings when you switch chords? If so I'm wondering if there's a grounding problem... ...
6
Todd Wilcox is totally on-point here. The best method for eliminating sound leakage in a shared structure is the room-within-a-room method. I'm a musician and engineer with 15 year's experience, and I spent a modest sum treating my studio. We used rigid fiberglass bass traps in the corners, rigid fiberglass wall panels, and absortive foam panels. We also did ...
5
My method of dealing with problem rooms was to bring along a real time analyzer and test for the room resonant peaks and equalize the room with my graphic eq.
The bass and lower mid-range tones are heftier and will reflect much more uncontrollably than the higher tones which can cancel themselves just by reflecting once.
Placement of the speakers up high ...
5
This is not always feasible in terms of performance, but the strength of the noise often depends on which way you are facing. If you turn left or right you might find a dip in the volume of the noise (the coils are loop antenna, which are directional).
Electro Harmonix, and maybe others, make a special pedal, the Hum Debugger, that is supposed to identify ...
5
A sound hole cover will make a minimal difference.
If you are really worried about it then what I would recommend is introduce yourself to your neighbors and let them know that if there is an issue to just talk to you about it. That way you are not worrying about it if there is not an issue, and you know right away if there is.
Truth is you can't know ...
5
It sounds like FRET BUZZ. Cheap guitars and basses often have it. You can have the bass "set up" at a guitar shop, meaning they'll do their best to correct issues like this.
4
While I can't provide the answer, I can tell you that a compressor won't do quite what you're describing. When the compressor is triggered it will decrease the gain of everything going through the chain. So, if your feedback is overwhelming the mix and triggers the compressor, then everything will get compressed, making everything you want emphasized ...
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