Jim Tavegia
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New April concert just finished at 10pm
Elk
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Jim.

I know exactly how frustrating this is.

If you would like I would be happy to remove the noise for you. If you are interested, send me a PM for my snail mail address.

It would be a fun project and I would love to hear what you have been capturing.

Jim Tavegia
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Those that requested, the discs with programs were mailed today, SAT, postal. I am so torn up about the HVAC noise. Maybe I should have released this on cassette, with Dolby B of course.

Give me your take on this re-performance of the 10+1 Lucy Robert' Diessel composition.

Regards,

Jim

Jim Tavegia
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Noise within the music

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As I have just finished another amatuer recording project for my local University. I am plagued with understanding the issue of noise and the masking of a great performance.

From a recommendation of Taterbones of the Steve Hoffman Forum site I have been enjoying the use of Audio DVD Creator for leaving my 2496 files intact to enjoy playback in any DVD player. For a $40 program it is magical.

In this last concert recording the HVAC noise was awful in the large venue/ballroom we were in. it was a Wind Ensemble of 20 players along with a pianist for one of the tracks. I love using my omni mics as it gives a great sense of the space without adding any reverb, au natural' as I like it.

I don't use any EQ or post reverb, but I was upset at the HVAC noise in the room sitting at -50db for the entire performance. I tried to get the University maint. folks to shut it down during the concert, but it was all controlled off a central University computer system and no manager was on campus at our 8:15pm concert time.. Oh, well.

One thing we all appreciate about digital is the black backgrounds, the total absence of any noise around the notes, seemingly suspended in air that does give us a great sense of artist positioning on the stage.

I could not help but trying to get a handle on what makes this level of noise (loud dither) so objectionalble. The more I thought about it, it made me think about looking into a rectangular room filled with 15 or 20 people at various positions in the room and then filling the room with more and more smoke so that it became harder and harder to make out the people and their exact postions in the room.

It seemed like a great analogy in that with that noise just sitting there, that when the performance was running peaks at -10 and above, the music was there all right, but the smaller in volume frequency overtones that make up part of the natural room reverb and sense of space and positon were being masked by that noise. It may not have been totally masked, but still there was a veil that convered the music.

When the opening of a new song began that was somewhat low in volume, you could hear it as it overtook the noise floor, but the noise could still be heard if you worked to listen for it.

As I look forward to next year's recording work there this issue will have to be solved. In my March recording there was a sax quartet made up of PHd.s that deserved to be recorded in a quiet setting, not next to the "boiler rooom".

struts
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Jim,

You might want to check out this program. I used it and its siblings on my needle drop project and found them excellent: very effective against the various forms of noise they target, but very gentle on the underlying audio.

I am sure Elk et al will have other recommendations.

Jim Tavegia
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DMP 3 Mic Preamp Evaluation

I have begun some evaluations concerning the overall sound of my last local University recordings. Some aspects are fine, other are not.

The overriding HVAC noise is an issue that will be addressed in all future concerts, but that is not all that has contributed a veil across the audio during playback. Something is clearly not up to par.

I took the DMP3 ( what I would consider the equivalent of a $200-$300 phono stage) and ran some sources through it to get a sense of the sonic colorations in might have. I should certainly be able to detect

Elk
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Ventilation noise has an amazing amount of low frequency energy. I think of forced air systems as really poorly designed organ pipes.

Instead of using the high pass filter, record with everything flat. If you need to filter anything out you can always do it post production in Sound Forge.

Keep in mind that the low E on a bass guitar or double bass is 41Hz. You don't want to cut out the musical low end - and you can't it back if you do. Additionally a lot of room sound is in the lows, a bit surprising perhaps.

My guess is that your preamp is happily letting the low energy stuff through and you are noticing it in recordings. If it was really hyping the lows you would decidedly hear it on good source material as the low end would be heavy/muddy.

Your recordings sound great! Better equipment will add some polish but the most important thing is the guy setting up the mics.

Jim Tavegia
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Thanks for your comments and recommendations. I do record everything flat and try and add or take away nothing. As I have heard JA mention that when you use uni capsules your low end might suffer some, but with the HVAC noise in this venue that might be a good thing. I fear that this ballroom might end up being the home for the UWG Wind Ensemble.

As mentioned in a previous correspondence, there are a number of "other" mic positions worth trying in the future, including a closer spaced omni pair with an appropriate angle depending upon the untimate spacing.

I will be doing some duet work coming up with John Bleuel and his wife, Linda, on piano and Sax respectively. In addition, the soporano sax solos you heard is from a close friend, Patti Martin(Band Director for Carroll County), who is applying for her Doctoral work and will need some demo recordings to provide with her application that will be sax and piano; that along with some duets with her French Horn playing daughter sometime in the near future.

The thoughts now are to upgrade mics and technique and work from there. As these new performances are completed I will send along these works for you to enjyoy, and as always, critique.

Regards,

Jim

Jim Tavegia
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Posted a pic of the UWG Wind Ensemble in the Gallery.

rvance
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Jim, After waiting over a month for my Marantz receiver to be repaired (under warranty, TG) I was finally able to play your recordings. You did a magnificent job. I didn't find the HVAC noise too imposing. The hi-res disc was especially well realized. In this case, you can quit your day job!

Elk
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Agreed. It is a very nice recording.

rvance
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A good referral, coming from an experienced recordist.

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