VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[Geronimo]

So now that I have upgraded much of the gear, the next project is to work on the recording room. But until I get it built, I'm trying to measure the noise floor for my current recordings.

I'm using the meter in AA 3.0 which displays values in dBFS as opposed to dB. The meter hangs around -48 dBFS for noise floor when I record white noise using the same pre/interface settings that I would use under normal vocal recording. When I look at Audition's Amplitude Statistics using sine, I get these stats:

Left Right
Min Sample Value: -142.2 -142.2
Max Sample Value: 153.84 153.84
Peak Amplitude: -46.57 dB -46.57 dB
Possibly Clipped: 0 0
DC Offset: 0 0
Minimum RMS Power: -65.44 dB -65.44 dB
Maximum RMS Power: -51.07 dB -51.07 dB
Average RMS Power: -56.85 dB -56.85 dB
Total RMS Power: -56.71 dB -56.71 dB
Actual Bit Depth: 24 Bits 24 Bits

Using RMS Window of 50 ms


Is it the peak amplitude value I should be concerned about, or the average RMS power value?

And what is a "good enough" value to have before building the recording room?

[Edo]

-48dBFS is pretty noisy... Are you absolutely certain the noise isn't coming from say... an internal soundcard? There's your culprit right there... Computers aren't designed to treat audio very well... it's just one of 360 different functions it needs to do, hence sound isn't priority no. 1. Using external soundcards/interfaces have far better results.

Also please remember that tuning up your recording room requires a couple of thoughts:

- shape of the room (eliminate bundled reflections)
- MAM construction (mass-air-mass)
- wall-, floor-, and ceiling treatment

Furthermore the actual design of the room is way more important than the materials used to achieve your goals. If you are really interested in constructing a proper room or studio, I can recommend a very nice book by a guy called Rod Gervais. The book is called "Home Recording Studio, build it like the pros" and is considered a must have in the industry of studio construction. I'm not in any way involved with the author or the book, but it's money well spent. Here's one of the places to find it.

Also you can find a wealth of knowledge on the forum operated by a very well known studiobuilder. His stuff can be found HERE.

Good luck!

[Geronimo]

Well, not absolutely certain, but more like 95% certain. My chain looks like this:

Senn 416 -> 5' Balanced XLR -> GR ME-1NV
GR ME-1NV -> 5' XLR/TRS -> M-Audio Fast Track Pro
M-Audio Fast Track Pro -> USB -> Audition 3.0

Through these forums and my own experimentation, I'm comfortable enough with the gear controls to believe everything is set up optimally, though I may have missed something.

But that then pretty much leaves my recording room (if you saw it, you'd understand) as the culprit.

I live in an apartment, and so don't have a room I can dedicate for recording, but I've begun reading up on the DIY recording booths, and hopefully those will give a substantial boost, err cut, to the noise floor.

[Edo]

Measuring noisefloor from the headphone output of your Fast Track Pro NOT connected to your computer through USB would be interesting... I'm curious if the specs would be the same or different. But I guess you don't have professional metering equipment available to check that.

Why not post a couple of detailed pics of your recording room? We might be able to comment on that. Could even be that there's a rather cheap way to adjust your room to achieve better results. I have been involved in studio construction a couple of times, and it helped me understand the concepts quite a bit.

Good luck!

[Geronimo]

[Edo]

I could have put it way easier... I would be interested to see what the noisefloor is BEFORE your chain enters the computer. USB connections have been known for generating noise, that's why I commented on you probably not having external stuff for measuring purposes... excuse me for being too techie.

And if in your current recording room there's loads of stuff, that probably HELPS preventing unwanted reflections and provides diffusion of sound waves as well. So even if it might not LOOK right... It can be a good thing after all.

Happy now?

[Geronimo]

[Edo]