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....
16
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 ...
11
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
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
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 ...
7
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.
7
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
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
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 ...
6
Depending on whether it's creaks or thumps from the pedal itself or from the damper mechanism, you could try alternative mic positions.
From the front, aim higher up the body, or mic it from the rear, or even lift the lid & mic it inside.
One of those might just be enough to reduce it - otherwise you're going to have to learn to release less abruptly, or ...
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
I play acoustic guitar primarily but I do use a great deal of sliding on strings to emulate bends that I would do on an electric guitar - and I like to keep the string noise toned down a bit. Most of the string noise I get comes from the lateral movement of my fingers down the strings which can sound like sawing wood on the wound strings as my fingers run ...
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.
5
Aside from other pretty much reasonable recomendations to relocate or reorient the microphone, there is one thing you can try for a bumpy pedal:
Insert something soft (rubber, few layers of fabric, etc...) in the opening over the pedal. You may need to band it to the pedal in order to keep it from falling off.
4
Magnetic tape was one of the first formats that allowed folks to easily record speech or music at home. Unfortunately one of the biggest problems with cassette tapes using the magnetic tape format was their propensity to produce prominent hiss.
Here is a quote from Wikipedia article on "Tape Hiss":
Tape hiss is the high frequency noise present on ...
4
Flatwound strings
It's an extreme option to be sure, but flatwound strings have drastically reduced scraping noises compared to roundwound. It's in their very design. Rather than a rippled profile like with roundwound, the edge of flatwound strings is nearly flat, with tiny gaps between the windings. When very new, they may have a slight very high pitched ...
4
I have the same problem. I see this is a very old post, but thought I may contribute anyway. It may help someone.
I have the problem not because of a lack of calluses. I have played for 40 years, and for the past several have played for hours every day.I have had well developed calluses for a very long time.
But I also have an autoimmune disease which has ...
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 ...
4
It is not the guitar
It is the guitarist that plays the guitar
Our body picks a lot of noise and if it is not grounded (by we hold the strings or any guitar metal piece that is grounded - our body would inject an extra noise into the active pickup
Simply - hold the guitar strings to ground yourself or just turn down the guitar Volume pot
4
That's exactly what a noise gate is for: turning off everything when you are not playing. Remove the noise gate from your signal chain and then try going after the noise. Once you figure that your noise level can no longer be improved, the noise gate may make sense in order to keep things quiet when you are not playing. But for diagnosing problems, it is ...
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