Musicvid,
I saw in an earlier post where you recommended that mic along with the Mackie 402. It seemed to me that that recommendation almost REQUIRED an upgraded sound card (I think you suggested the Echo Mia). I'm trying to avoid the extra $150 expense. The reviews of the Tascam unit seemed pretty good re: noise. I for sure don't want to buy what is purported to be a super quiet mic and negate that with a noisy amp/converter. I was hoping someone had experience with the Tascam and could give me first-hand knowledge.

I want my voiceover work to be as clean as possible (obviously within $$$$ reason). I've read many of your posts in the last couple of years and I respect your opinion. Leaving the better expandability of the Mackie out of the picture, how strongly do you feel about the noise issue with the Tascam.? (I realize, an unfair question, in some sense)

Many thanks for you sharing your knowledge and experience.

Harold

You are unfortunately attributing a lot of statements to me that I never made. The OP in that thread suggested the Mackie mixer, and I and rraud concurred that it would be a good fit, based on our experiences with the brand.

rraud suggested the Echo interface, not me. But I understand his reasons for doing so completely, based on its reputation.

All audio interfaces are particularly subject to noise in the mic preamps and A/D converters. A 98dB snr number means absolutely nothing once a mic is hooked up. It's not a matter of whether or not there is noise, instead it is how much noise you are able to put up with. There is nothing unusually good nor unusually bad about Tascam in this respect. It is probably a good solution for the home enthusiast -- not as noisy as some, noisier than some others.

Your choice of an nt1 indicates that you are after more than a home recording solution for your voiceovers. It's my opinion only based on limited experience, that the Tascam would probably not be able to take fullest advantage of the dynamic range offered by the mic you have chosen.

However, a $125 Tascam is probably a good starter solution, and you won't be out a great investment if you decide to upgrade to a different audio interface in the future.

Are you locked into getting a USB solution (for a notebook I assume)? If not, there are several solid, quiet firewire interfaces available for not much more than you paid for your mic (no I won't suggest a particular model because they are very similar in my experience).

My mistake. I thought you suggested the combo.

No, I'm not locked into USB. I'm doing my work on my PC desktop. It has Firewire but my laptop does not. It would be a "plus" to have the flexibility to use my laptop if I wish.

I did not know that Firewire was quieter than USB. I thought its claim to fame was extra speed. I thought that moving the A/D converter out of the computer took care of most of the noise.

I'll reexamine this thing looking at Firewire interfaces.

Thank you musicvid.

H

I can see that I may have conveyed a false impression that firewire is quieter than usb. It is not.

It's all in the preamps, converters, and the care taken in the physical design and layout. Converters also cause Q-noise that is independent of their physical location. In this business you pretty much get what you pay for, and there is a generally acknowledged quality factor between a $125 and a $250 audio solution. Audio techs prefer firewire over usb, generally speaking. One notable exception is the Sound Devices, which I would give my left garbanzo to own.

As a semi-retired musician, I shop a lot of flea markets and also tend to form opinions about equipment based on the names that show up a lot for resale. It is not uncommon to see Alesis, Tascam, Behringer, low-end M-Audio, etc. equipment offered at low prices. In the last ten years, I've only seen one Firewire 410 show up at one of these sales, and I could still kick myself for not having enough money at the time to buy it.

As for my home setup, my higher-end M-Audio USB interface crapped out last summer (voltage regulator), and I've been using my Zoom h4 for the little bit of v/o I've had to do in the meantime. It's pretty clean and gets the job done, very portable too.

Yeah. As I stated earlier, I've been using my Zoom H2 and been pretty satisfied but it does have noticible background noise. Hence my desire to upgrade.

I've come full circle and am now of a mind to go back to the setup you guys discussed on a previous post... the NT1a and Mackie 402.

If you will indulge me one more time... as I understand it, I need dual 1/4" to dual 1/4" TRS (balanced) cables to go from the mixer to the Echo soundcard. First, are TRS cables by definition balanced? Second, I can't seem to find such cabling. I find TRS to dual TS aplenty. Am I misunderstanding something?

H

Oops.... disregard. I found the cables.

Thx for your generous help musicvid.

H

I recommended the 'Echo Mia' based on equipment the OP already owned. Had they not already had a mixer, I may have suggested a soundcard/converter with a good quality pre-amp built in to it.
That said ,there are many factors that go into getting even a decent sounding VO.. the above mentioned, mics, mic preamp, converters, room acoustics, acoustically borne BG noise (or lack thereof) and most important, the 'VO artists' voice and delivery.

Having TRS cables alone would not necessarily make an unbalanced circuit balanced. It's all in the equipment design. There's nother wrong with unbalanced, as long as the cables are kept short, a higher voltage signal (+4dB) would usually have a little better s/n ratio.

Are you sure the soundcard has a MIC level input ? TRS is usually line-level.

Also, RODE actually make mics ( in Australia). Mackie do not - probably chinese OEM), FWIW.....

And for the Zoom H2 to have noise issues sounds like you were recording too low an input gain, or into Line Input. Your room noise is likely over 20dB louder than the noise floor of the Zoom !

geoff

OK. I'm starting to get confused (and that doesn't take much, anymore). Here's my situation...

Need: I do books-on-tape type stuff for an educational website... just me and my voice... nothing fancy.

Equipment: PC, Win 7, 8gb RAM, stock sound card, DAW=VP10e augmented by Audacity. Mic= Zoom H2 used as USB.

Workflow: Record into VP, send file to Audacity for minor noise reduction and other cleanup, back to VP for overdubs and other massaging. Render final output.

The noise that I referred to is what I, in my limited experience, would call a noise floor. A low level "rushing" sound, for lack of a better word. I don't think I have a room noise issue... I live in fairly remote AZ mountains, no street noise, no AC and no heating this time of year, only my computer equipment. Audacity takes care of the noise with no apparent degradation of voice.


My finished output is "pretty good"... "not too bad". I'm trying to get to "pretty darn good". I thought all I needed was a better quality USB mic. After reading the recommendations on the other post (and this one) I came to the conclusion that the NT1a, M402, Echo Mia combo was what I needed. Now I'm not sure. I feel like the more I learn the less I know.

What I DON'T want to do is to spend nearly $500 without appreciable gain or for what I could do considerably cheaper.

I don't blame any of you for not reading this lengthy post but I will surely appreciate anyone who can help lift this cloud.

Thx,
H

Can you post a clip? It's possible 'some' of he noise may be from one of more components of your playback system, for instance, cheap headphone amps are notoriously noisy as are 'computer' speakers and soundcards. That said, the H2 doesn't have the quietest preamps either and as Geoff stated, especially if it's not set-up properly.

If your "stock sound card" has a "What U Hear" record channel, turn it off!
Only record device / channel that should be active is the zoom.

Musicvid, there are a couple of items enabled, but the H2 is set as the default.

I'm gonna post two files... one is raw, just as it was recorded in SVP. The other, will be after processing for noise reduction only in Audacity. Neither will have any other processing such as EQ or compression.

Here goes... I've never done this before.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/84176283/Test-raw.wav
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/84176283/Test-Audacity%20NR.wav

That should do it... thx guys.
H

I listened and looked at your raw file.

-- Your peaks are a little clipped. Turn down the mic gain until your recorded peaks are around -1 to -3 dBFS.

-- Turn off the AGC or Limiter that is causing the noise to ramp up when you're not speaking. That is really annoying!

-- Cut your low frequencies at 80 or 100 Hz in recording. You don't need the garbage.

-- Noise floor is pretty high, -36 to -40 dB.
Most of the noise sounds like it is coming from your computer fans and hard drive.
Once you get that whipped, you'll probably gain another 30 dB or so of snr.

-- Run your h2 on the adapter (on a noise-free strip) instead of batteries. It's supposed to be quieter.

-- Load the latest firmware on your h2. The original version had some issues iirc.

-- Keep your USB cable as short as is practical.

-- Adding noise absorbing materials on parallel room surfaces will help with the reflections, which I can notice.

-- After that, you can apply some moderate compression with a lower threshold that will make your vocals stand out.

Well worth a little effort. Tackling these things at their source is far better than trying to fix in post. Adding a more sensitive mic at this time is not going to help.

I also hear some acoustical borne noise. . Yes, turn that freak'in AGC OFF.
In addition, the mics on the H2 are 'side fire', so speak on axis with the mic, then in post, choose the side/track you used and delete or remove the other.. since it's mono anyway, you only need one track... and DO NOT use the H2 mono combine mode, it is not a true one-channel mono , it just combines all the channels.

I'm working on these things.

Clipping - guilty. I can handle that.

Latest firmware - I updated this morning to the latest

The H2 isn't using batteries OR AC... it is USB bus powered. I haven't yet got to trying it on batteries or AC. I'll do that yet.

AGC - This one's a mystery. The H2 has it but it is, and has been, turned off. I don't think there is anything like that anywhere in the chain. And my not-so-well-trained ears can't hear anything that sounds like AGC. It sounds like the noise floor is pretty constant... only masked by the voice. What am I missing?

Acoustic BG, computer fans, etc. - My mic is on the table, my tower is on the floor under the table. If I put my head down, I can hear a slight sound from that stuff but I have to listen carefully. I don't think that those sounds are causing the noise. Attached is another file... I put the mic in a box and put that box into my padded laptop carrying case. That should at least reduce such noise, if not eliminate it. I can see little or no difference.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/84176283/In%20the%20box.wav

rraud - I'm not sure I understand the "side fire" thing. I normally record head-on to the front of the mic with it set on "front 90 degrees". In Vegas, I set the track to combine the channels.

I will yet try using it on batteries and on AC power to see if anything changes.

Thx,
H

Just tried a sample using battery power and again using AC.

I could see no change in the noise.

BTW, what would you expect this level to be if it were "good"?

H

USB power, of course. Should be no problem on a quality 6 ft. USB cable.
And the difference between power source would be light years below your current noise levels. You'll never see it.
Just trying to give you the benefit on all fronts.

--> My points are listed in approximate order of importance, although acoustic reduction should be higher on the list, as rraud suggests.

"It sounds like the noise floor is pretty constant... only masked by the voice. What am I missing?"
To my and rraud's ears, it is horrible, and we have a similar scope of experience. I very nearly used a stronger f-word than he did when I heard it. Did you have the h2 Limiter turned on? Is your recording program running agc for you? It is evident in your latest sample too.

"BTW, what would you expect this level to be if it were "good"?
You mean the cumulative noise in a quiet room with an h2?
-70 to -80 dB below peak would be "good" in a home studio; you may never get that, but there is plenty of room for improvement. Work my list from the top down and let us know how you come out.
;?)

(I thnk you missed my second-last post)

As I said, the AGC on the H2 is and has been off. I'm recording onto the Vegas Pro timeline. I'm not aware of any hidden AGC stuff in Vegas. Further, I am not using any of the plug-ins in Vegas... it's just the pure recording.

When I say that I'm not hearing it, I'm not implying that you can't. I just don't know where it could be coming from (the AGC surging).

Also, if this noise were acoustic, wouldn't it have been at least diminished by my box test?

Assume for a minute that the noise floor is not accoustic. That would leave either the mic or the sound card, right? Is there an easy way to nail that down?

H

If you are recording through the usb, the h2 is the sound card.

As I said in my earlier post, recording inputs on your system sound card should be muted, and you should not be recording through it. You should be recording from the Zoom H-Series ASIO device, not Microsoft Mapper or the system card.

And yes, your noise is analog hiss with lots of acoustic noise. It's not digital quantization noise.
I thought the h2 had an AGC circuit and a Limiter. Are both turned off?

Really, ambient noise on my first-generation h4 with the mics on is -70dB in my living room with no noise mitigation and glass windows. I just now tested it. I shouldn't be beating you by 30dB snr in an uncontrolled environment. II don't think your h2 has two bad preamps, but make a test recording direct to the device with the mic sensitivity on Low and the mic gains all the way down to make sure.

Gonna have to check out on this discussion for now, but let us know what you find out.

OK. I'll keep plugging away.

(BTW, the AGC/compressor/limiter are all under the same menu selection and all are off).

I thank you kindly for all your time and hope I haven't worn out my welcome for any future issues.

Harold

We're talking the original H2 here, not the newer H2n right?

Side address/End address= Example: an Shure SM57,58 or 81 would be considered an 'End Address' mic, whereas a Neumann U87 or AKG C414 would be considered a 'Side Address' The H2's internal mic should be used in a 'side-address' fashion, the recorder positioned vertically, so the front (or rear) panel is looking directly at you, and use the Front/Rear mic configuration.
Try recording direct to the H2 @ 48kHz/ 16 or 24 bit WAVE format, then copy the file over to your PC. In post, as I previously recommended, remove the mic/track that is facing 180 degrees away from you. (In Vegas) Right-click the Event> Channel> select Left or Right only, this will make it single-channel mono, automatically panned to center.... exactly where it should be)

Background noise, (PC fans, A/C, distant traffic or otherwise) to the ear itself, may not seem to a problem, not so, when a mic is put into the equation.
No hfritsche, you have not haven't worn out your welcome.