- What noise floor really is (and what it isn't)
- Why context, weighting, and window size matter
- RMS vs Peak vs LUFS – and why it all depends
- How your mic, preamp, plugins, and power can mess with your readings
- Whether your studio noise is actually a problem or just sounds nice
TriBooth – Use the code TRIPAP200 to get $200 off your TriBooth.
Austrian Audio – Making passion heard 🔗 Links
- Join the conversation: https://www.facebook.com/groups/357898255543203
- Learn more: https://www.proaudiosuite.com
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Y'all ready?
00:00:00
Be history. Get started.
00:00:01
Welcome.
00:00:02
Hi. Hi. Hi.
00:00:03
Hello, everyone, to the pro audio suite.
00:00:06
These guys are professional and motivated.
00:00:08
Please take the video.
00:00:09
Stars George Wisdom, founder of Source
Element Robert Marshall, international
00:00:13
audio engineer Darren Robin
Roberts, and global voice Andrew Peters.
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Thanks to tribal Austrian audio,
maging passionate elements
00:00:21
George the tech wisdom and Rob and APIs
international demos.
00:00:25
To find out more about us.
00:00:26
Check the Proteas
sweetcorn line up. Ready?
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Here we go.
00:00:31
I'm here with me
and welcome to another pro audio suite.
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Thanks to tribus.
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Don't forget the code.
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Trip up to 100 to get $200
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off your plosive again and Austrian audio.
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I have to say, I just did it again.
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Those plosives, the hunt,
the hot property, the place of zero.
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Dear, oh dear, oh, dear.
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Very noisy.
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And speaking of noise, that's what
we're going to talk about today is noise.
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Basically new studio.
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And it's something that, I get
we talk about the stadium noise.
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I have no noise that drives on that noise,
like rotten and things, but yeah,
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not random impacts or plosives
or dull noise in your system.
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Noise floor noise.
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Noise floors,
I think is the word for this.
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Yeah, indeed.
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Really annoying noise. Yes.
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So. So when somebody talks
about their noise floor,
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they always throw a number out.
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I see in every Facebook group
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my noise, myself noise
or my my room tone or my sound.
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The where I see a lot,
my sound -eight inches.
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So yeah, yeah, yeah.
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By my sound floor
I see that one all the time is -74.
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Right.
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And they'll just that's the number period.
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Right.
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First of all,
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what does it mean when so many mentioned
the sound floor or noise floor
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or whatever terminology they mean.
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What does it mean.
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Well I don't know.
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See this is the thing
because if you're talking about noise off
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your microphone, isn't it going to depend
on how much gain you've got on the mic
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and all that sort of stuff?
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I mean, how what a noise floor of minus
whatever means jack sheet,
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depending on how much it's all relative,
it's all relative
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to the performance volume
that you're putting into it.
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So the signal or yeah, the signal to noise
ratio is the thing.
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Right.
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So if you're recording a whisper
and you're always recording stuff
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that's whispering your noise, floor
is way more critical than if you are doing
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video games and always yelling, yeah,
because your preamp can be turned down.
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And now the ratio between
what you are interested
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in, the yelling, the whispering,
or in the case
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yelling is a lot louder than the noise
that's inherent in your booth.
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And so now you want the biggest difference
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between the signal you want
and the signal you don't want.
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And so it's so it's it is a ratio really.
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But it's not expressed as a ratio
is it George.
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It is expressed in decibels
or a negative number.
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And and is it Rmse.
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Is it a lot smaller.
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Is it a peak. It what is the number
and what is its weighting.
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And there's so many other ways to do
we measure that.
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And does
your software know the difference.
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And does the person that's asking you
the number know what any of this stuff
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means. Exactly.
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And this is a way
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that microphone companies use to hide
the weenie can confuse people.
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Microphone work a lot
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higher spec than it might be,
especially when it comes to the weighting.
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The weightings are can be very confusing.
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Yeah, you might see a weighting or see
weighting.
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Those are the two.
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Most common is that there is no B
weighting.
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It's always A and C whatever.
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Is it
C that emulates the human hearing curve.
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Like the sensitivity
to low versus AI frequencies.
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So it's C weighting is I always get this
I think
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I think they're both based on the Fletcher
Munson curve with Fletcher Munson.
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Yeah.
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But Fletcher,
neither of us are saying that correctly.
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Is that what you get
when you've had a couple accounts?
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The Fletcher Munchen a
a weighting mimics the human hearing
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and C weighting is less selective.
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C is more is more,
let's just say more broad
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and probably more sensitive
to low frequency.
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Right.
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So that's the less forgiving
and and high frequency too,
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because the Fletcher Munson curve
is it's your smiley face.
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Right.
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So it's your sad face, right.
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That you see weighting is less forgiving.
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It's it.
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So what happens is
it's in everybody's software.
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They they hit record.
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They get the room tone right.
And they hit stop.
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And then they analyze it
somehow, like because somebody asked them,
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what's the self?
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What is the noise floor of your studio?
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That's that's what everybody is asked
you know, as an actor and voice actor,
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what is the noise for pure studio noise
for my studio when my preamp turned off
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is, you know, exactly what does it mean,
where what noise are we measuring?
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We've got so many sources of noise.
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We have this the noise that emanates
from the microphone, from the preamp,
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maybe somewhere else down the signal
chain, some plug in.
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You have some plugins create
a plug in that you might have for waves.
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Waves.
You got to turn it off. That's right.
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Literally be careful.
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Everyone out there waves
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literally has like 60 cycle noise
because somehow that's vintage compressor.
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You can dial in noise if you want to.
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Yeah, absolutely. An age
delay. Same thing.
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Yeah okay.
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Here's a question there.
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So if I'm if I'm recording
or AP by the way and and I can
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I mean I know exactly and I come in
I've actually captured 4824
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and I'm peaking at around about -18.
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Okay.
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Which is that's pretty low. Pretty low.
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So pretty low.
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If I capture that level
and I send that off,
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what is going to happen
when they start compressing.
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They're going to turn it up.
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So so you by peaking at -18 you have not
helped your signal to noise ratio
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because you have 18dB
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of space between those two that you've not
used. Yep.
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Okay. Right.
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But does you need to use all 18. No.
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Because then you risk hitting the wall.
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So but you want to be more at like minus
six maybe at least minus ten minus three.
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You start to sweat, you know,
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where's the sweet spot?
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I always try to get people to come in
somewhere between -12 and -6.
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I think that's the yellow range
on most matters.
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And I always say, if you're in the yellow,
let it mellow.
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All right. That's right. Yeah. I
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if you're
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always in the green, it's a little lean.
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Because again, that's, that's my,
that's my little monitor.
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So, so yeah.
00:06:23
You can turn your preamp up
and assuming that, you know, like that's
00:06:26
going to pull the noise from
the preamp will be less of an issue then,
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but then that will pull up
all the background noise with it.
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Because if you think about it, the noise,
the volume
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of your voice relative to
the noise of the room is a constant.
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Yeah, you're never going to change that.
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And if your preamp was perfect,
then recording at -18
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wouldn't make a difference
because it would all raise up in ratio.
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But by having your preamp
at the right level,
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you're at least getting the most out
of your signal to noise
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ratio of the preamp and the microphone
itself.
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You're optimizing
your signal path or signal chain.
00:07:03
You're getting the best resolution
that your preamp can provide.
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You're getting the best sensitivity
your microphone can provide.
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So those things are the D converter.
00:07:12
Yeah.
00:07:12
So those are all essentially taken
out of the equation.
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If you're if your gear
is of decent quality,
00:07:20
the sound you hear in that room tone
when you hit play and you listen
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99% of the time, probably not the mic
00:07:27
probably not the preamp, it's
probably the environment, right?
00:07:30
Yeah. But what sort of mikes
are we talking about that make noise?
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I mean, tube
mics obviously will create noise.
00:07:35
Yeah. Dynamic mics. Here.
00:07:37
Let me, let me give you guys
a really good example.
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Wait a minute.
00:07:39
Dynamic Mike does a dynamic
Mike make noise?
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I don't know that it makes noise.
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It just makes it makes the preamp work
harder. Yes.
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Yeah, but I think I have
a good mic example here. And
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sorry Austrian audio.
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We're going to, we're going to I'm
not on an Austrian audio mic right now.
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So what's it doing here if we're trying to
demonstrate bad, bad stuff.
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Not good.
00:08:01
I was working quick and I didn't
I didn't, like, give it up.
00:08:05
So basically, here's a kind of a battery
powered condenser mic.
00:08:10
So this is now the boom on my headset.
00:08:12
Too much gain, by the way.
00:08:14
21 seconds. Awesome. Forever.
00:08:16
Yeah, yeah. That's right. Exactly.
00:08:18
But when I, when I come back on this,
you're going to hear the,
00:08:22
the noise floor of just, All right, now,
do you hear the difference in this one
00:08:26
at all? Yeah, a whole lot less level.
00:08:29
Level? Yeah, a lot less level. Right.
00:08:31
Let's say in theory we do because we're
going to hear the raw audio in the post.
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But right now we're hearing the,
the you're hearing, which is like noise.
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Right.
00:08:40
And so because the levels less in order
to bring it up than I have to hit,
00:08:44
you know, bring my preamp up
and then up goes all that noise.
00:08:48
Yeah. Right.
00:08:49
Right.
00:08:49
And, and even the electronic noise
in this case.
00:08:51
So for a voice over a microphone of,
of, of a higher sensitivity
00:08:56
or maybe the highest possible sensitivity
theoretically
00:09:00
is the best microphone
for a voice over the road.
00:09:03
Ntg five.
00:09:04
This is a very modern, very new mic.
00:09:06
It's only been around for a few years.
00:09:08
First thing I noticed with that
Mike is it's high.
00:09:10
The highest output Mike had ever used.
00:09:12
It was like shockingly hot.
00:09:15
That would be good.
00:09:16
That means that you could plug that
into any old cheap audio interface
00:09:20
which only has like a Scarlett
two i2 Gen two that has 48 DB of gain.
00:09:27
I still think you're right
and wrong, right?
00:09:29
I think you're right and wrong
because there's still the concept of self
00:09:33
noise on the microphone.
00:09:34
So the microphone could have a lot
of output, but still a lot of self noise.
00:09:38
There's one minus.
00:09:39
If you had a low output mic
with a really clean preamp,
00:09:42
the Ntg five is pretty quiet
though I was using it last week.
00:09:46
I had to work up at my parents place
and I took it with me.
00:09:48
Yeah, it's pretty quiet.
00:09:50
Yeah. So low self noise, high output.
00:09:52
You got a really great Mike.
00:09:53
There's one microphone
that a lot of people use and I like it too
00:09:56
that it stands in for 416 all the time.
00:10:00
The 41 six.
00:10:01
And this is the 87 five. Yeah.
00:10:04
The Audio
Technica 875 are it's a really bargain mic
00:10:07
and it sounds really nice,
but that is its biggest Achilles heel.
00:10:11
It is.
00:10:11
It is a noisy.
00:10:12
Yeah.
We tested it a couple of weeks ago. Right.
00:10:14
Yeah. Yeah.
00:10:15
Is that the one we used?
00:10:16
Yeah. Noise is noticeable. Yeah.
00:10:18
And and even switching
between this Audio-Technica
00:10:21
and this boom mic I can hear the noise
difference is switching between these two.
00:10:25
Because even though this boom mic
sounds like calling all cars,
00:10:28
I can hear the hiss difference.
00:10:29
It's clean. It's.
00:10:31
Yeah.
00:10:31
The mic you're wearing on your headset
looks like just a standard headset.
00:10:34
Nobody knows that
that's actually a $1 microphone.
00:10:38
Yeah. Underneath that foam ball.
00:10:40
That's it's
00:10:40
just that this thing is a $1 mic
and it it is definitely very clean.
00:10:44
It just has a horrible EQ curve meant
to make it over the top of a race car.
00:10:49
Right.
00:10:50
It's for, you know, reporters on the track
reporting.
00:10:53
Yeah. Covering. Exactly.
00:10:55
So what can we recommend
as best practice, then, for that voice
00:10:59
actor
who's being asked to tell the report back
00:11:04
what my studio's actual noises
or the noise level of my studio?
00:11:09
I mean, I said,
you answer a question with a question.
00:11:11
I would say that to just be like,
what rating would you like?
00:11:14
Would you like the noise
for, expressed in peak or Rmse,
00:11:18
which is something
that we should just talk about right away?
00:11:20
Okay. Let's talk about the difference
between those two.
00:11:22
And they're quite can be quite diff.
00:11:23
So basically it's the difference between
the instant level and the loudest content.
00:11:27
Yeah that's right. Yeah.
00:11:29
Or the average level Rmse is average.
00:11:32
And peak is instantly
what's happening right now.
00:11:35
So you could have a right.
00:11:37
So you could have a high noise
or your noise floor expressed in the peak
00:11:41
level would theoretically be higher
or worse,
00:11:45
a worse set, a worse number
00:11:48
then the Rmse or the average,
because you're going to have an average.
00:11:52
Okay.
00:11:52
Here's another question
then based on Twisted Wave,
00:11:55
I'm looking at twisted wave on my screen
as we speak.
00:11:57
And on the right hand side there is it
says the level meter
00:12:02
and it says Rmse at the bottom.
00:12:04
So is that meter on twisted
wave an Rmse or a peak?
00:12:10
Make sure the Rmse, it's an arm's meter.
00:12:12
Well it's right.
00:12:12
So in Rmse
meter is more like a view meter.
00:12:16
It's an averaging meter. Yeah. It's both.
00:12:18
So the number at the top of that view
meter
00:12:21
is a peak momentary number.
00:12:25
And the bottom number at the bottom of
the twist wave meter is the Rmse reading.
00:12:29
Okay. So it shows you both at all
the time. Right. Okay.
00:12:32
Which is kind of him I wish I wish Adobe
Audition would do that.
00:12:36
It's really frustrating
that audition does not show you,
00:12:40
Rmse or loss metering.
00:12:42
Now you can get plug ins.
00:12:44
And what's a good free one?
00:12:46
You mean,
is that the free? Yeah, that's the one.
00:12:48
Everything is a free one.
00:12:49
That's I yeah, it's perfectly good enough.
00:12:52
And easy to license
and tells you what you need to do.
00:12:54
Yeah. Right.
00:12:55
And one thing, one thing to be clear
is that like loves and
00:12:59
okay, FS are a version of averaging,
but they are over time.
00:13:03
Well and also they're,
00:13:04
they're frequency dependent
because they're very much voice oriented
00:13:07
because they're directed
at dialog normalization for program
00:13:11
for TV and whatnot.
00:13:12
So they are an average
but they also weight it.
00:13:16
And we talked about that earlier.
00:13:17
The weighting is like applying
an EQ curve to the measurement
00:13:21
so that you're focusing on a certain
frequency range so to speak.
00:13:25
So lots and also they have a timing to it.
00:13:27
The timing of the average
is a little bit different.
00:13:30
Well that's the thing. So this is
I wanted to get into that too.
00:13:32
There's so many different aspects
about measuring noise.
00:13:35
So you're in twist a wave at AP.
00:13:37
You hit you hit your file menu
00:13:39
and drop down
and you'll find something called analyze.
00:13:43
This is going to give you
much more useful information because it's
00:13:47
going to give you first of all, it's
going to analyze the entire file,
00:13:51
whatever it is.
00:13:52
If it's an hour long it's
going to look at the whole file.
00:13:54
Now you can select a tiny bit of it
and analyze it.
00:13:57
But generally we analyze the whole thing.
00:13:59
And now you're going
to get all this information.
00:14:01
And you may see a peak amplitude of -17.
00:14:05
In my case based on the last file
I just recorded and edited,
00:14:09
it has a peak of zero DB,
because at some point it was a transient
00:14:13
loud noise by me
laughing or snapping into and it hit zero.
00:14:17
And then I see, I see laughs,
which is what Robert was talking about.
00:14:20
That's that average level calculation
that's weighted based on hearing.
00:14:25
And it's you said it's more voice
centric, right, Robert.
00:14:28
Yeah, yeah.
00:14:29
Because it's for TV programing.
00:14:31
And then below that I see average Rmse.
00:14:35
So now I see two numbers, both of them
measuring essentially an average level.
00:14:40
But in this case very different readings.
00:14:43
The love's is at -20 almost -27
00:14:47
and the Rmse is -35.
00:14:50
So now what numbers
are we looking at here?
00:14:52
I mean we're measuring noise, right?
00:14:55
So if someone asks you
what your noise floor is
00:14:57
you got to ask them,
how do you want me to report this to you?
00:15:00
Because if not, almost less is more.
00:15:03
And, you know,
if you had to report back to them,
00:15:07
then you give them an average number.
00:15:09
That's always going to look, look better.
00:15:11
And probably the, the,
00:15:13
the one based on loves
is probably the one that looks the best.
00:15:17
And I guess maybe. Yeah.
00:15:18
I mean, in this case, so,
so then you also have minimum arms.
00:15:24
So in twist Away there's essentially what
is the sustained minimum average level.
00:15:30
And that essentially gives you
your noise floor
00:15:34
essentially again
assuming your peak is at zero right.
00:15:38
So my opinion is is take that file.
00:15:41
Bring it.
00:15:42
So the peaks are at zero
normalized to zero.
00:15:45
Then do this measurement.
00:15:46
And when you look at that minimum RMS,
which is how loud the noise is
00:15:51
at a sustained period of time,
that to me is the most honest
00:15:55
possible measurement of what a
in a pure in a pure recording.
00:16:00
Once you once you figure out
00:16:01
the mic preamp setting for your
peaked or normalized setting,
00:16:06
and you
00:16:06
say, okay, so normalizing it,
I have to bring it up by
00:16:09
six DB or whatever, you can almost
just do the calculation in your head.
00:16:13
You can have that.
00:16:15
I peak out at minus six.
00:16:16
So whatever the number is
I'm going to add six to it. Right.
00:16:18
So let me let me hold you there for a set
because I'm looking at AP
00:16:21
and I can see him stroking his beard
which always tells me that he's thinking.
00:16:24
And I'm just wondering what questions
if he got it,
00:16:26
I can see it might be helpful for it
for those listening as well.
00:16:30
I just put a file up on Tuesday
wave of a session I did yesterday,
00:16:35
and I'm looking at the numbers
00:16:38
and it's got here. Peak.
00:16:39
Peak amplitude is -12.16 DB.
00:16:45
True peak amplitude is
00:16:47
the same -12.15
00:16:51
true peak. That's another.
00:16:52
Yeah.
00:16:52
It is isn't and plus is sitting at 29.7,
00:16:57
29.97
00:17:01
average arm is power.
00:17:03
We're looking at that.
00:17:04
No minimum monthly.
00:17:05
We're looking at minimum rest power.
00:17:07
And it says to me,
00:17:10
infinite, infinite or EMF dot zero DB.
00:17:15
Maximum minimum miss power is -23.13 DB.
00:17:21
Maximum rest is an interesting number.
00:17:23
I never look at that.
00:17:24
And I've never seen anybody call for it
as a spec.
00:17:28
But what I do look a lot
at is minimum arms.
00:17:31
And what you're telling me is the, the
and now
00:17:34
this is the issue
in the duration of your file.
00:17:37
At some point you silenced
there's enough pieces of audio.
00:17:41
So you have what we call digital.
00:17:43
That's why you got the minus infinity.
00:17:45
You have a minus infinity because
it measures the digital black and does.
00:17:49
That's the quietest moment.
00:17:50
Well it's interesting
because I don't use silence.
00:17:52
But you have a gate or something.
Just knocked it.
00:17:55
No I've got nice I have room noise.
00:17:58
So I actually captured light.
00:18:00
Shut the door.
00:18:02
Open up the mind. Well,
this was in your booth.
00:18:04
Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised.
00:18:06
Sometimes it'll be honest with you.
00:18:07
It's something made it like made
it think that there's zilch.
00:18:10
Not nothing there. Well,
I got one more question.
00:18:13
What is the Rmse
window number at the bottom of the box?
00:18:16
Our window is 200 milliseconds.
00:18:19
Change it to two to change it to 2000.
Just.
00:18:22
That's the longest window
00:18:24
measurement against the little changes
in the numbers on the screen immediately.
00:18:28
Okay, okay. Now it now it's changed.
00:18:31
So my may look at minimum.
00:18:34
Is that right.
00:18:35
Minimum I tell me minimum is -33.87 DB.
00:18:40
Now isn't that interesting. Okay.
00:18:42
So what that means is
if the Rmse window what that means is
00:18:47
what's the length of time
that it's listening to.
00:18:50
Yeah. Yeah.
00:18:50
And then calculating off
that window of time.
00:18:53
Right. And in twisted ways. Average.
00:18:55
Yeah.
00:18:56
The twist the wave software
00:18:57
nicely gives you an option
to change that right there in that window.
00:19:01
Yeah. Many programs may not or don't.
00:19:03
So now you can this is so
this is another way to fudge the living
00:19:07
shit out of the number. Yeah.
00:19:09
If you want your your minimum Rmse numbers
to be flattering, choose a short window,
00:19:15
the shortest window possible,
and it will drop.
00:19:18
And then
and then analyze the quietest moment.
00:19:20
Yeah. The shorter the even more so.
00:19:23
But if you want to be the most honest.
00:19:25
Well, what is the most, well,
00:19:26
the most honest thing
would be to do the minimums
00:19:29
and tell them over x amount of time over
one the most.
00:19:33
Honest. Yeah. Right.
00:19:34
And so all this numbers you guys are
hearing probably menu for the first time.
00:19:39
And this is the problem
with this whole conversation of
00:19:43
what is the noise floor of your studio
like these.
00:19:46
They come up on Facebook all the time
00:19:48
and I just say, listen guys,
and we all have to be on the same page
00:19:52
as to what that actually means,
how it's measured.
00:19:55
And as we've just discussed,
there's a lot of variables
00:19:58
and there's other stuff
to think about this
00:20:01
I rather have a higher noise
floor of a nice sounding smooth
00:20:06
than some like lower noise of like, okay.
00:20:09
Yeah. Right.
00:20:10
It's. Yeah.
00:20:11
So the, the quality of the noise
and it's funny and like how
00:20:14
the noise you hear about people
talking about Hi-Fi noise, right.
00:20:18
And whatnot.
00:20:19
But there's so many factors
and I think it's ridiculous for
00:20:22
honestly the some of these places
to be sweating the voice talent over
00:20:27
trying to give them numbers,
like there's some empirical way of
00:20:31
determining the quality of something
just by by a simple minus
00:20:35
a negative noise, but not really possible
because you just got to hear it
00:20:38
and go, like,
I can use that or I can't use that.
00:20:41
Yeah. And
00:20:42
and generally yeah, like certain things
are going to fall in general numbers.
00:20:46
But if you like, pop your mic on
and look at your meter
00:20:49
and you have a peak meter or whatever,
and it's like it doesn't, it
00:20:53
just like sits down low, it like -70
00:20:56
minus even 60, you're probably good.
00:20:59
Yeah. You know, you're probably good.
00:21:01
And if, if at your setting
you get a reasonable level.
00:21:04
And then when you stop talking
and you stop breathing
00:21:06
and it drops down to -70,
or a good meter doesn't
00:21:10
even meter so low, some of the meters
only started like -40 or so.
00:21:14
Right.
00:21:14
You shouldn't see anything.
00:21:15
So but you know, it's like but many,
00:21:19
many voice actors are on a TLM 103
00:21:22
or road and one or some other might
that has no high pass,
00:21:26
no filter, and it measures down to ten.
00:21:30
All the noise.
00:21:32
Right.
00:21:33
So now you have this instrument of noise
measurement that you need.
00:21:37
I always call the TLM 123.
00:21:39
The seismograph of microphones.
00:21:41
I was going to say
if you live in California it's even worse.
00:21:43
Yeah.
00:21:44
So so now you've got this instrument
that's designed to measure or listen
00:21:48
to the entire range of sound below
the range of human hearing
00:21:52
to above the range of human.
00:21:53
And now you.
And that's all affecting the meter.
00:21:55
So I get so many people
00:21:56
that come to me like,
oh my gosh, my, my, it's my noise floor.
00:22:00
Is it -30 2 a.m. I I'm screwed.
00:22:03
Oh my God I'm gonna need
to get weatherstripping for my windows.
00:22:06
You know, this is, Yeah,
this is a logical conclusion I get.
00:22:09
I get this filter.
00:22:10
Yes. What do you have a standing wave
in your space that you don't even know
00:22:14
is there?
00:22:14
Because a UV,
it's like nose blindness to a smell.
00:22:19
You stop smelling certain things,
you know, and you go on vacation,
00:22:23
you come home and you smell your own house
or like, geez, who farted?
00:22:27
Yeah. That's right. Jesus, right?
00:22:30
It's true.
00:22:31
Happens all the time. We go
my apartment like,
00:22:33
Is that why my first choice
to leave the dog in the house?
00:22:35
Fuck it out.
00:22:36
Yeah, yeah.
00:22:37
So, like, with that rumbly sound,
like you?
00:22:39
It's in your life.
00:22:40
It's in your environment.
Is there all the time now?
00:22:42
Some people are really sensitive to it
and like, some crazy.
00:22:45
But most people tune it out,
you know, see it.
00:22:47
But the microphone boy
does it here at all.
00:22:49
And you have this crazy wavy thing
going through your waveform.
00:22:53
And that is so, so easy
for any engineer to fix.
00:22:58
So is it okay for the actor to high pass
filter
00:23:01
their file before they send in a sample
00:23:04
and say this is at a low low like
00:23:07
my, you know, -50 or 60Hz or 50.
00:23:11
Yeah. In there
especially with, with a gradual slope.
00:23:14
And you've got no problem at all.
00:23:15
But no, nobody knows what you mean
when you just said that.
00:23:17
What is a gradual, gradual slope mean.
00:23:19
So rather than rather than a if you're
looking at, at the, at the filter
00:23:23
rather than being a cliff straight
up and down, you want a nice gradual.
00:23:27
Well, it would be
00:23:27
if you're looking from left to right,
it would be a nice gradual rise.
00:23:30
I suppose if you're going forward,
why do you need it to be?
00:23:32
You don't you don't know what it is
with certain mics. It's just a switch.
00:23:35
You flip.
00:23:35
But generally the mics
are going to have less steep ones.
00:23:39
When you look at your EQ, you can see it.
00:23:41
You should just know that
when you have a very steep filter,
00:23:44
any filter there's there's always an equal
and opposite reaction to things.
00:23:48
So as you have a steeper
cliff of the cut off,
00:23:51
you're going to reflect
straight back into the other side.
00:23:54
And so the gradual ones
are more transparent.
00:23:58
So the FFT filter and Adobe Audition,
I shouldn't
00:24:02
use it at 60Hz with an extremely,
I guess, vertical line.
00:24:06
You might get away with it
00:24:07
at 60, depending on what you're doing,
depending on what you're working on.
00:24:10
I'm talking about it's
going to have a it's going to have a
00:24:12
like like like you know
how some filters even show you when you
00:24:16
when you drop the curves tight,
the, the part right before it pops up.
00:24:20
Yeah, it's the resonance.
00:24:21
It literally it literally gives you
a peak of energy called the.
00:24:24
Yeah.
00:24:25
It's like the same thing
happens with a speaker with porting.
00:24:28
It's it's almost the same physics.
I believe.
00:24:30
That's what I love about the high pass
filter and twist wave.
00:24:33
By the way, it's not actually twisted
waves high pass filter.
00:24:36
It's Apple's it's
the Apple high pass filter.
00:24:39
Is that right.
00:24:39
It has a yeah it has a cutoff filter
and it has a resonance setting.
00:24:44
So you can control both.
00:24:45
You can control how much
and what frequency.
00:24:48
And you can add a resonance bump
if you want or a delay
00:24:52
that's big for those synth guys.
00:24:54
I love the razor. I do don't like this.
00:24:57
It's also a way to artificially
give yourself a little bit of extra,
00:25:00
little extra.
00:25:01
So it's like if you play,
are you probably, you do better music.
00:25:04
You've played with fab Filter on waves.
00:25:06
You know that little resonance
scene there?
00:25:08
Wow wow wow.
00:25:09
And you can put it in tempo
and all that sort of stuff.
00:25:11
Those synth guys love it. Yeah,
I love that.
00:25:14
Yeah yeah yeah.
00:25:14
So Andrew
00:25:16
yes this is my now when somebody asks you
what's the noise floor of your studio.
00:25:19
What are you going to tell them. Nothing.
00:25:23
Yeah. Admit nothing.
00:25:24
Your first question is over.
00:25:26
What settings is is your question.
00:25:28
Yeah. Yeah. You're going to have a sir.
00:25:30
You're going to have a list
of like six questions.
00:25:32
Yeah. What is the windowing. Yeah. Yeah.
00:25:34
What is the, are we measuring
like what are we measuring.
00:25:37
How we measuring it.
00:25:38
Yeah, we're about
so we measure what weighting and what.
00:25:42
Yeah.
00:25:42
What scale,
what weighting and what window of time.
00:25:45
It's interesting.
00:25:46
I must do this again though, using
a different, different setup because,
00:25:51
so the minimum at 33.87, -33.87.
00:25:56
Minimum over 248
00:25:58
using over over 2000 milliseconds.
00:26:02
Right.
00:26:03
That means that file, does
this an edited file.
00:26:07
Yeah.
00:26:08
So over the course of that edited file,
which doesn't have a bunch of room
00:26:12
tone, right? Yeah.
00:26:13
It's mostly your voice during that
00:26:16
segment of audio,
there are very there's almost no segments.
00:26:20
If there's no segment in there,
two full seconds long.
00:26:24
That is silence, right?
00:26:26
Okay. There's there's no drop.
00:26:28
At no point during that file
00:26:29
do you just literally stop talking
and have a two second gap.
00:26:34
Right?
00:26:34
So when you measure it, it's not finding
00:26:37
a segment of two seconds of room tone
because there ain't there.
00:26:40
Right.
00:26:41
So you have to measure this before editing
because you need to have some room tone
00:26:45
to measure.
00:26:46
You know you have to have that room tone
to begin with.
00:26:48
So if you picked another file entry
that had some room tone on it, just,
00:26:52
you know, so and even more to the point,
I was going to bring up like be
00:26:55
careful
of some other things, for example, dither.
00:26:58
What is dither?
00:26:59
Oh no, dither don't go in the ways
it's noise.
00:27:03
So so that's you know,
maybe it's a low level and below
00:27:06
the levels that we're talking about,
they're going to affect it.
00:27:08
But that is adding noise to your signal.
00:27:10
And then the other one to be careful of is
if you compress your voice
00:27:14
you are reducing the signal to noise
ratio.
00:27:17
You are inherently
bringing up your noise floor by using a
00:27:21
because all the high stuff is pushing down
towards the noise anyway.
00:27:24
That's right, pushing that down.
00:27:25
Bring the whole thing up
however you want to.
00:27:27
A compressor is designed
to reduce dynamic range.
00:27:30
And so what is that signal to noise ratio?
00:27:34
You add more compression.
00:27:35
You're reducing
that dynamic range of signal to noise.
00:27:39
The noise gets louder. Right? Right.
00:27:40
Which is why I say please don't compress
and send me your voice tracks
00:27:44
because it only makes it
if your noise floor is,
00:27:47
it makes it harder
for me to get rid of it.
00:27:48
And then on the flip side, you can use
an expander to figure lower noise more.
00:27:54
And I do that all the time.
00:27:58
Not only
00:27:59
perfectly, but I always try to get away
with murder, an expander
00:28:03
and not a gate, because a gate
is going to have that hard on off.
00:28:07
It's every engineer get in there.
00:28:09
Skin crawls if they detect a gate.
00:28:11
Oh that's.
00:28:12
Yeah, that's a big no no. It's
the gate is the biggest.
00:28:15
No, no of all, you know, it's
as soon as they detect that okay.
00:28:18
Oh this is interesting okay.
00:28:20
So I've just laid another one up.
00:28:22
This is, roughly edited
but not dramatically
00:28:26
minimum of Rmse, -58.82.
00:28:31
And what's the window?
00:28:31
That's a, the window is 2000 milliseconds.
00:28:34
Make the window 1000.
00:28:35
I don't know what is the default.
00:28:38
It might be 200, but generally the shorter
windows typically.
00:28:43
Yeah.
00:28:43
What's what's the window
for like a view meter I don't know,
00:28:46
but try to try 200 milliseconds Andrew,
because I feel like that's more likely.
00:28:51
What is common.
00:28:53
Okay. With the 200 milliseconds?
00:28:57
This sample is 300 milliseconds,
by the way.
00:29:01
Oh, okay.
00:29:01
Let's go to 3.30.
00:29:02
It's got A33 hundred
and I got 300 milliseconds.
00:29:05
Okay.
00:29:06
So now I've got minimum Rmse of -76.43 DB.
00:29:11
That's very good.
00:29:11
Which I would say
is a really good set. Exactly.
00:29:14
I mean -70 I'll tell you anything.
00:29:16
Like tell me again
what was what was the peak on that.
00:29:18
What was the peak and the peak.
00:29:20
Peak amplitude is -6.6 db okay.
00:29:24
So we subtract minus six
and then just go true
00:29:27
peak assignment peak versus peak is.
00:29:31
So there's so close.
00:29:32
And then the lux was -26.25 okay.
00:29:36
So that's just the average of
how loud you are. Yeah.
00:29:39
And that's another thing.
00:29:39
People will sometimes be told to send
in a file with a loss of a certain value.
00:29:44
And that is not unless you're processing
your audio.
00:29:47
That's not acceptable. As of spec.
00:29:49
You cannot expect an actor
to deliver a raw
00:29:52
performance at a specific average level.
00:29:55
Yeah, that's a ridiculous record.
00:29:57
I seen it come up.
00:29:59
Video game,
people will say we want peaks around -18
00:30:03
and they and the actor
doesn't know exactly what to do.
00:30:06
So what are they going to do,
put a limiter on it I mean, right.
00:30:10
No, no. Right.
00:30:11
No thank you. Right.
00:30:12
No no, no.
00:30:13
They're expecting to have an engineer
sit there with their
00:30:16
with their knob on the,
with their hand on the preamp knob.
00:30:18
And it's just not possible
for an actor to do.
00:30:21
And so. But why are they
why are they asking for these specs?
00:30:24
I mean, if you've got an engineer
working on it, does it matter?
00:30:28
I don't know, I think it's ridiculous.
00:30:30
I honestly think it's ridiculous
that they do this
00:30:33
because they're asking for something
that's impossible,
00:30:36
and they just force these actors to either
freak out or start over doctoring
00:30:40
and doing other nefarious means
00:30:43
of faking numbers that they think
they're trying to punch it.
00:30:46
Yeah, because you can't. Right?
00:30:48
You can't really deliver this
this in a reasonable
00:30:50
asking them to do something stupid.
00:30:52
Yeah, absolutely.
00:30:53
Andrew,
you said a noise were of -70, right.
00:30:56
But that's got to be a,
that's that's an average.
00:31:00
So that was a that was an Rmse rule.
00:31:03
And then, and then if you add back
if you peak normalize
00:31:06
your voice out of it, you're probably
going to add another six decibels.
00:31:09
And you're probably gonna get pretty close
to that -60 range.
00:31:12
Yeah.
00:31:12
Most people in a home studio,
I dare you to do better than -60,
00:31:17
unless you are putting $10
into your booth.
00:31:20
I'll tell you what.
00:31:21
It's power. I'm telling you, it's power.
00:31:23
How clean your power is.
00:31:25
I think it's a lot, because I will get
recordings of a 41 six into a Scarlett,
00:31:30
and sometimes it's
-75 DB all day of noise floor.
00:31:34
And I'm just like, damn, that's clean.
00:31:36
So you're saying like, are you suggesting,
like a power conditioner?
00:31:39
Something like, I think it's just luckily
00:31:41
some people are lucky
they live in a more rural area.
00:31:44
There's not a lot of dirty power
from neighbors.
00:31:47
They're not.
00:31:47
Have you ever noticed that if you
if you have your laptop plugged
00:31:50
in, it's worse
than if you unplug your laptop?
00:31:53
Well, that's the absolute guarantee.
00:31:55
Guaranteed.
00:31:56
Yeah. Like you want the best noise
possible.
00:31:59
Clean power.
00:32:00
Unplug
your unplug your laptop and run on it.
00:32:03
And just do your session with the battery
instead of the power.
00:32:06
Yeah, yeah. Here's another thing.
00:32:08
Just to add to this, this file
I remember I recorded, I actually
00:32:14
added gain.
00:32:15
I added about nine db of gain to it.
00:32:19
So I really recorded peak level of
00:32:23
minus -15 I reckon.
00:32:26
Oh okay. So it was actually -15.
00:32:29
And then I add a gain to it
to bring it up to minus six.
00:32:33
Yeah.
00:32:34
So based on the fact it was
that would affect the noise floor as well.
00:32:38
I would imagine
if I was it'll bring it all up. Yeah.
00:32:40
I was just see a signal to noise ratio.
00:32:42
When you you're increases a million.
00:32:43
If you don't do any compression
or any expansion your ratio will stay
00:32:47
the same,
not at least of the acoustic noise floor.
00:32:51
And you're just bringing it up or down
relative to
00:32:54
like,
oh, here's a louder noise and louder me.
00:32:57
It's so interesting because like,
even the microphones that have
00:33:00
they do have different values
for how quiet they are.
00:33:02
And some of them brag quite heavily.
00:33:04
Road is one of them.
00:33:06
They brag a lot
about how quiet the road 21 is,
00:33:09
like is itself noise rating
and the TLM 103 also very quiet Mike.
00:33:13
But in a real world scenario,
you'd probably get a better average
00:33:18
noise reading from a 41 six
00:33:22
whose self noise is like -16.
00:33:25
Yeah, I'm sorry 16 DB versus the road,
which is maybe four DB
00:33:31
because simply
because a 441 six isn't hearing
00:33:35
as much information
as the Antwon is hearing.
00:33:39
I said from from the bottom of the ocean
to well above,
00:33:42
and it's hearing everything.
00:33:43
The 416 and this is indicative of most
microphones that have smaller diaphragms.
00:33:48
It's much harder to get low noise out of a
small diaphragm, large diaphragm mics.
00:33:52
One of the big reasons for them is they're
easier to get a better noise floor.
00:33:55
So those mikes are going to give you
a better electronic reading.
00:33:59
But again, I think the like
you said at the very beginning,
00:34:02
any of your noise is coming
from environmental stuff
00:34:05
and the 416 is going
to just not hear a ton of that.
00:34:09
Yeah.
00:34:09
Not not
not just because it doesn't hear it on.
00:34:11
It's, it's, you know, it's
cut off on the low end maybe.
00:34:14
Oh yeah. But also because it's
so directional, right.
00:34:17
Yeah. As well.
00:34:19
The other thing I also throw into the mix,
00:34:21
the microphone was the
00:34:23
818818, but I think this is the
this is the kicker.
00:34:29
The preamp I used was the 1073 Neve.
00:34:32
And that's for the Transformers.
00:34:34
So I'm guessing
you get quite a bit of noise.
00:34:36
Other noise. Yeah.
00:34:37
Yeah yeah.
00:34:37
The transformers always have noise.
00:34:39
Yes, yes.
00:34:40
So that wasn't even the cleanest
signal path you could get, your Grace or
00:34:44
something would be better.
00:34:46
Yeah, quite a bit.
00:34:46
If I use the grays, it'll be a lot cleaner
than.
00:34:50
Or to wrap it all up,
the past for a video, which apparently,
00:34:55
based on some measurements, it's
it measures out very, very, very, very,
00:35:01
very well, pleasingly compared
to, let's just say, the Avalon.
00:35:05
That was the place where I had that gear
measure was a place where they test
00:35:08
and tune and repair Avalon preamps all day
long.
00:35:12
Right.
00:35:12
So let's just say the best money can buy
in terms of preamp circuits, you know,
00:35:17
and especially possibly
because you can take the passport,
00:35:20
Vo, unplug your computer,
power off the computer.
00:35:22
Now you're floating.
And that's precisely what they were doing.
00:35:25
This in this case,
they were using a laptop
00:35:27
to run the Power passport with no power.
00:35:30
It was running a battery.
00:35:31
So we're getting the lowest
the cleanest power.
00:35:33
And then we were measuring,
00:35:35
the tone was coming in the XLR
and passing out
00:35:38
the one of the balanced outputs
for the monitors.
00:35:42
So it was running all the way through
00:35:44
and out the monitor output
and then into the precision.
00:35:47
So that was the whole path, the preamp.
00:35:49
Right, the E to D, the D to A
00:35:52
and the auxiliary to the, the
the the the the preamp of the yeah.
00:35:57
The the speaker. Yeah.
00:35:59
And the thing is
we don't have a way to calibrate
00:36:01
what the input and outputs on
the of the device should actually be.
00:36:04
So we had the gain at neutral 12:00.
00:36:07
You know we don't know what the gain was
truly set to.
00:36:10
It could have been a 40 DB of gain 38
I mean we don't know 45.
00:36:15
So we don't know what the gain is.
00:36:17
And that was somebody one of our,
one of our listeners, you know, wrote in.
00:36:20
He's like,
00:36:21
well, I mean, it doesn't mean much because
I don't know what your gain setting was.
00:36:25
I don't know.
00:36:25
And I said, well, we are all comparing
this and contacts with an Avalon.
00:36:29
737 right.
00:36:31
Which is a very clean, very,
very low distortion.
00:36:34
We haven't time
distortion, little distortion.
00:36:36
And that'll be another one.
00:36:37
Yeah. That's not going to start down
that road right now.
00:36:40
The noise,
the noise reading was comparable
00:36:43
to the 737 and 737 is around
minus is around -92.
00:36:48
Passport was in the margin
of error -89 -90.
00:36:53
So it was very close.
00:36:55
And essentially at that low of a
the price is around 1000 or 600.
00:36:59
Yeah. Yeah.
00:37:00
No no more like 1506
out of the 737 is like 2500.
00:37:05
Yeah I say that way up. Yeah.
00:37:07
So so really it compares with boutique
00:37:11
and you know really high quality preamps.
00:37:14
And at those numbers they're,
they're negligible in terms of your noise.
00:37:18
Like when you record something
00:37:20
and we're all talking about
where's the noise coming from
00:37:22
at any of these,
any of this gear we're talking about.
00:37:25
It's not the preamp.
00:37:26
It is not the preamp.
00:37:27
You know.
00:37:27
So it's it's the train that I mean when I.
00:37:30
Okay, that's the train Robert calling on
and the foam patch, that he's
00:37:36
passing through on the way from the train
and the neighbor's internet connection.
00:37:41
Hey, listen, speaking of microphones
before we go, who's
00:37:43
the friend of mine in Potts Point,
which is a very hoi
00:37:47
polloi suburb in Sydney,
very wealthy part of Sydney.
00:37:50
Check out
can you see the number plate on this car?
00:37:52
Well, it's like, you know, I can't see it.
I can't make it.
00:37:54
The number plate. He's road you.
00:37:57
No, that'll be the Freeman's.
00:37:59
What is it? What's the car?
00:38:01
Looks like a business.
00:38:02
I have no idea. Actually, no,
it looks like a rolls.
00:38:04
I'm not a car fanatic.
00:38:05
I have no idea.
I'll send you guys the photo.
00:38:07
You can have a look.
Yeah, it's a Bentley or a rolls. Yeah.
00:38:09
Ask. Ask Rowan Atkinson. Healey.
00:38:11
And you know who that is? That.
00:38:13
That'd be Freeman who owns road. Right.
00:38:15
There you go. Yeah. Hello. Road.
00:38:18
Hello.
00:38:19
Model.
00:38:20
Well, that was fun.
00:38:21
Is it over the front? Audio. Sweet.
00:38:25
Thanks to driver
00:38:26
and Austrian audio recorded using Source
Connect, edited by Andrew Peters.
00:38:31
And make Spyro
the Got Your own audio issues.
00:38:34
Just ask Robbo.
00:38:35
Don't call him tech support for George
the tech William.
00:38:37
Don't forget to subscribe to the show
00:38:39
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00:38:43
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00:38:46
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