Reducing sound card hissing, or good sound cards

[Alistair]

Hey guys and gals,

I have a few questions today.
Firstly, how can I reduce noise levels from my sound cards? People have noticed the noise from my SBLive! card, and probably my Audigy 2 as well. I don't care if I have to buy something, though any solutions whatsoever are appreciated.

Secondly, can someone recommend me good sound cards to use for digital recording? Creative annoys me these days, I'm sceptical about the quality.

Regards, thanks for your time,
- Alistair

[Zemus]

I had the same problem. It's not just your soundcard though, it's also the synths. My Audigy 2 has a pretty quiet line in (on the external box that is), but the CM-500 makes a lot of noise.
I've solved it by using the filter function in Adobe Audition (previously Cool Edit Pro) to remove the noise. You record just noise first and then run the filter on it to make a profile of the noise. Afterwards you can use that filter to remove the noise from your music. It needs to be applied carefully though so you don't mess up the music.

[Alistair]

I had the same problem. It's not just your soundcard though, it's also the synths. My Audigy 2 has a pretty quiet line in (on the external box that is), but the CM-500 makes a lot of noise.
I've solved it by using the filter function in Adobe Audition (previously Cool Edit Pro) to remove the noise. You record just noise first and then run the filter on it to make a profile of the noise. Afterwards you can use that filter to remove the noise from your music. It needs to be applied carefully though so you don't mess up the music.

So basically, I record line-in with my synths on, but no MIDI file playing?

I then make a profile in Cool Edit?

How do you apply it 'carefully'?

Thanks very much for this, Zemus Brilliant!

Anyone else feel free to chime in, of course.

- Alistair

[Zemus]

So basically, I record line-in with my synths on, but no MIDI file playing?

Yes. That way you'll only get the background noise that also appears when you're playing the MIDIs.

I'm paranoid enough that I think the noise changes over time so I usually record about 10-20 seconds before I start playing the MIDI. Then I use that part of the recording to create the profile.
The filter will give the recording a hollow, echoish effect if the music and the noise is close to each other desibel-wise (look at the meter). I use the filter called Noise Reduction to remove the noise. I've found that setting Noise Reduction Level to 93-94%, FFT size to 8192 points and Transition width to 3-6dB produce good results.

[Alistair]

Again, thanks very much.. most helpful.

The big question- does this filter change the audio at all, in your experiences?

Regards,
- Alistair

[Zemus]

My CM-500 has background noise around -56 to -60dB and the music's around -20 to -5dB. When there's that big a difference I don't notice any distortions in the sound. I don't have $1k headphones either so there may be some, though minimal.
The only times I've gotten noticeable distortions has been when I've tried to remove noise from microphone recordings, but that noise is MUCH louder.

[Alistair]

I was recording some Incredible Machine 1 digital files today, and tested your filter, Zemus- works perfectly (on my Audigy 2 at least)! Brilliant, thankyou so much. I'll send that PM to you soon as well.

Might upload some test digital tracks, and ask if you can hear the difference, and if the end result is good, etc, this week.

Regards,
- Alistair

[Ari]

I just got a Terratec SixPack 5.1 card (avoiding Creative Labs sound cards as much as I can) for my main computer - the one that's gonna do the digital recordings. I'm pretty happy with it so far. pretty quiet...

[HondaSiR]

If money is no object, why not go for the tried and tested Turtle Beach Santa Cruz? Its digital capabilities are superb when compared to SB products. Then there's also the new kid (or sound card) on the block, the Turtle Beach Catalina with 7.1 sound and 24 bit/96KHz sampling rates. I would assume that both of them can blow away any Audigy model out there in quietness of sound samples.

[Alistair]

Money is certainly an object; I'm unemployed and poor.

And Zemus's strategy has removed all noise from my recordings, as far as I can tell! Haven't tried on my Live!, though.

Might get a Turtle Beach product sometime down the track- thanks for the suggestion Honda!

- Alistair

[Laust]

My CM-500 has background noise around -56 to -60dB and the music's around -20 to -5dB. When there's that big a difference I don't notice any distortions in the sound. I don't have $1k headphones either so there may be some, though minimal.
The only times I've gotten noticeable distortions has been when I've tried to remove noise from microphone recordings, but that noise is MUCH louder.

That is pretty noisy. The ambient noise level on my CM-32L is around -80dB, -94dB if the volume knob is turned all the way down (which isn't very useful of course )

[Zemus]

This is with the volume knob turned all the way up. I get -60 to -63dB when I set it to its usual position.