Topic: Noise problem on recording (possible reasons?)

[Numbness For Sound]

I just ran my new AKG 391 mics for the first time last night and am really pleased with the results. The only thing is that there is a noise present throughout the recording. It isn't too easy to hear unless it is between songs. So I came home and recorded some silence to see if I could get it back to work out what it was.

I've popped a 3 sec sample of the noise below and was wondering if anyone has any idea what the problem might be? I run the AKGs into a MV-50 pre-amp into my JB3. Is it possibly a cable problem? I picked up some cheap XLR cables to have in time for the gig and wondered if it might be them? Any thoughts/ideas on what the problem might be would be wicked

http://suddenlyisee.co.uk/other/noise.mp3

I normalised the recording to make the noise nice and easy to hear.

[Humbug]

I've never heard this noise on either of my jb3s, but perhaps its only on certain jb3s, or maybe my ears arent good enough.

Anyway, do a search on "jb3 hard drive noise". It'll throw up results like this one:

http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=30596.0

Is it a regular noise, every 8-18 seconds, or continuous? From your sample sounds like some sort of interference.

Humbug

[Numbness For Sound]

It's continuous Can only really pick up on it clearly during slower songs and at the talking in-between. I thought it sounded like interference or maybe a bad cable somewhere but am not 100%

[Numbness For Sound]

I tried out my mics with a MiniDisc and there isn't the same noise, but a lot of hiss in it's place. Could it be the preamp that's causing problems? Would adding something else to the mix possibly solve things (between the preamp and recorder)? At the moment it's my AKG 391s > Beyer Dynamic MV-50 > JB3/MD. Any help much appreciated as I love the sound of the mics so far, just not all the noise/hiss that goes with it

[sml42]

That sounds like the jb3 to me.  You say you normalised the recording... how loud is it actually?  From my jb3 I get a constant low level noise, plus a 'tick' every second or so, which I assume is data being written to the hard disc.  In my case it is VERY quiet, you need to apply a LOT of gain when mastering to hear this.

I guess, since you are using a preamp that you don't need to apply much gain when mastering?  You could try this as an experiment... instead of using the mv50 to give all your gain, use the jb3 to give some of the gain... so... for example, set the jb3 to +6dB gain, and run the mv50 6dB less.  Should give the same overall gain, and will now exercise a different portion of the jb3 analogue input.  That would be interesting to hear how that compares.

Another option of course would be to run an external a/d converter...

best regards,
stephen

[Numbness For Sound]

I'm starting to think the preamp has something to do with it now

I just did a little test by running the mics into the preamp to a MiniDisc recorder and this is the noise it makes just with the mics plugged in and recording..

http://www.suddenlyisee.co.uk/other/md.wav

There aren't any gain settings on the pre at all. Here's some pics of it with all the inputs etc. The knob at the front is just volume control for when headphones are plugged in;