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A Noizy Summer Underground!
Happy Summer Everyone!
Yo! Yo! Yo! Summer is here and it is absolutely beautiful in
San Francisco lately, which is actually a bit out of the ordinary.
Usually this time of year it's kind of cold and foggy but it's
been just awesome -- breezy, sunny, 70s-80s. Sorry, no heat wave
here folks. And when it's nice outside there is no end to the
parties and mini-raves going on in town. In other words, I am
getting absolutely nothing done in the studio and have nothing
to write about, hehe, unless you want to hear about all of the
hotties that I try to hit on and usually get shut down by. Last
night I stepped out to Come-Unity at 1015 Folsom. Garth was spinning
in the main room and my boy Corey Black (Imperial Dub Recordings)
was tearing it up downstairs. 1015 is a pretty ripping club with
a big main room and a cool underground feeling down below. Tough
sound systems in both places with awesome lighting upstairs. And,
of course, hell of chics, which I only look at and never talk
to because, well, I have no balls. The infamous Spundae goes off
there every Sunday for the clubbers who need one last party before
they go to sleep for the week. Gotta rest up for next weekend,
right?
Last week the X-Games were here in town. For those of you who
don't live here you can check them out on ESPN. It was pretty
fatty, I must say. Besides the fact that the average age was about
15 and I felt like I was at the mall, it was a really cool experience,
especially since admission is free so people were just roaming
in and out all day. The competitors are something else. It was
impressive and inspiring the way they put it all out there. It
taught me some lessons about how to follow your heart and do what
you really want. I know that may sound corny but it's true. Those
dudes may be the shit now but think about how much static you
would get if you tried to ride a board for a living and weren't
that good yet. But still, they stuck with it, stayed disciplined,
and are where they are now as a result. In other words, they followed
their dreams and didn't let the pressures to conform change what
was in their hearts. So the lesson to be learned is we should
all quit our jobs and become full time drug dealers... just kidding,
hehe. But seriously, I think you get the point. We went to see
the BMX vert finals (half-pipe) and let me just say that those
guys have nads the size of Jupiter. My buddy and I looked at each
other like, man, we're really old, huh?? Depressing... If you
ever get the chance to check the X-Games out, I highly recommend...
Anyway, enough craziness. Actually, I was fibbing a bit about
not getting anything done in the studio. I'm working away like
a mad dog, which is a good thing. Just finished mixing down a
deep house track written by Corey Black and co-produced and engineered
by me. It will be out on Imperial Dub's label by the end of the
summer. Also, I recently finished an ambient techno piece with
John Mitchell which, from what I hear, will be appearing on the
Come-Unity compilation CD, due out in the fall, I think. I'm currently
working on a fat tech-house track with Fionn Magnus of Primitive
Underground and some drum and bass stuff of my own. I'm also starting
a new project with John Howard in the coming months. See! I'm
not lazy, hehe!! So, for this summer article I think I will kind
of keep it general and touch on some lessons and little tips regarding
noise reduction that I have picked up over the last few months.
You know, things that I seem to learn the hard way, like, don't
touch the bare wire!!
1. Balanced Vs Unbalanced
Doesn't that title sound like some kind of surreal WWF bout?
"And in this corner, wearing black thongs and a leather gimp suit,
Unbalanced!!"... Hehe. Seriously, though, we are talking about
audio cables. There is constant reference to balanced vs. unbalanced
cables and it took a long time before I actually understood what
the difference was. In simplest of terms, unbalanced cables are
your everyday mono instrument cables. Just so that you know, all
RCA cables are unbalanced. Only 1/4" cables come in the balanced
or unbalanced variety (and in this discussion I am referring only
to 1/4" cables). For identification purposes, you can always tell
when a cable is unbalanced as it only has one black ring on the
jack. Balanced cables have two black rings. Some people call them
stereo cables, which is misleading because they're used for much
more than just stereo signals. But, in fairness, all stereo cables
are balanced-- they have two black rings. By the way, the rings
are not always black-- that's just how I'm referring to them,
O.K.? So no e-mails correcting me or I'll burn your house down!!!
So, what's the difference? Well, first of all, balanced cables
are ground compensated whereas unbalanced ones aren't . This results
in cleaner signals which are hotter and have less noise. Some
of you may have noticed reference to +4 versus -10 jack levels
in your owner's manuals. Balanced jacks are always +4. Unbalanced
are -10. It is wise to match jack levels with proper cables. So,
if the jacks on your board or instrument are +4, you should use
balanced cables. If they are -10, you may use unbalanced. What
you shouldn't do is use unbalanced cables when balanced ones are
called for. That is, you may use balanced cables on unbalanced,
-10 jacks without any sound degradation but you should try to
avoid using unbalanced cables on balanced jacks.
Is there a sonic difference? You'd better believe it! Balanced
cables are more efficient and lead to cleaner, quieter signals.
Recently, we were experiencing alot of noise coming off of our
E-mu e-6400 sampler, especially SCSI noise that was finding it's
way into the audio path. We switched out all of the unbalanced
cables with balanced ones and the difference was unbelievable.
Not only did we get rid of the SCSI noise, we also noted significantly
hotter and quieter signals coming to the board which means we
don't have to push the preamps as much. And, we've noticed greater
hi-end resolution of all samples as a result. So it's no lie when
you read that better, balanced cables make a difference. They
really do. The down side is that balanced cables are not cheap.
They are about double the cost of normal, unbalanced mono cables
which adds up pretty quickly. But the difference in sound quality
is well worth it. Since switching out the E-mu, one of our main
goals is to switch our entire system to balanced.
One final note on this subject. XLR cables (microphone cables)
are always +4, balanced. So, when buying a piece of gear, if the
inputs or outputs are balanced, either 1/4" or XLR, you know you
are getting a better piece of gear in terms of the signal it can
handle. If the gear has only unbalanced 1/4" or RCA jacks, it
is aimed more at the consumer rather than professional market.
2. Audio Vs Power Cables
Another thing which I've noticed that makes a major difference
in terms of studio noise levels is separation of cables. It's
extremely important to try, whenever and wherever possible, to
keep the power cables physically separated from the audio ones.
One of the leading causes of excess noise and line hum is, simply
put, disorganized cable runs where the audio crosses over the
power. What we do in our crib is bundle the audio cables, either
by using snakes or by simply taping audio cables together. We
then elevate the audio cables by running them along hooks which
we have screwed into the walls behind our gear. The power cables
are bundled together as well and these we run on the floor. This
way there is physical separation of a foot or two between the
two types of lines. As a result, we notice much less noise and
practically no ground hum in our system. Also, the cable area
behind our gear is cleaner and more organized. It isn't a jumbled
mess, thus making it much easier to switch out cables when we
have to and giving us easier access to the back areas.
Now don't get me wrong. This is not a fun task. It's kind of
like detention. Write 50 times, I will not cross the cables, I
will not cross the cables. The bigger your system is, the more
of a pain in the ass this task becomes, especially when you add
new gear. What we do is periodically (about every 6-8 months,
depending on the noise levels) rip apart the entire system and
reorganize all of the cables. In our studio this usually takes
an entire day so I don't recommend doing this when you are in
the middle of a mixdown. But the difference that it makes is immense.
When we add gear we try to keep it neat but this is kind of difficult,
so we do the best we can knowing that soon enough it will all
get reorganized anyway. One thing I've seen in other studios which
is a great idea is to take long cardboard tubes like the ones
used for artwork and use those for bundling cables. You just lay
them on the floor behind your gear and have some dedicated to
audio and some dedicated to power. This way the cables can still
lie in close proximity without the noise problem and it is easier
to switch out individual audio cables as you don't need to tape
them all together. And, the back area is super clean without a
mass of cables all over the place. You can usually get these tubes
for free at carpet stores as they come with the rolls of carpet,
are super long, and are most often thrown out by the store anyway...
3. The Computer Vs All The Rest
A major source of noise and general irritation, as well as a
good healthy dose of Hotline porn, is the computer. Because of
it's intense electromagnetic field, the computer and it's monitor
tend to corrupt everything that gets near them signal-wise. So,
it's smart to try and keep the entire computer system as far away
from the rest of your gear as possible. This is generally done
by dedicating one area of your studio space to the computer workstation
and putting the rest of your gear somewhere else. In our space
we have our gear laid out in an L shape. The computer uses the
small leg and the board and most of the audio gear are housed
in the larger one.
Of course, this is easier said than done. First of all, because
SCSI cables must be kept as short as possible, any instrument,
such as a sampler or standalone hard-disc recorder, which is incorporated
into the chain must be kept close to the computer. We deal with
this by keeping our SCSI'd audio gear in a fairly heavy rack box
which sits about a foot away from the monitor. The actual computer
box sits on the floor on the other side of the monitor, thus giving
us as much physical separation as possible with the sides of the
desk and rackbox acting as physical shields. Also, we try to keep
the SCSI cables separated from the audio cables on the devices
that are chained. This is not very easy and in some cases practically
impossible. We haven't found a great way to do this but if anyone
has any ideas we're all ears.
Also, we have the entire computer system and audio interface
running off of a separate outlet and breaker from the rest of
the system. This makes a major difference in terms of noise. In
fact it is smart, whenever possible, to have three separate power
supplies for your studio-- one for the computer, one for your
audio gear, and one for the power amps. This goes miles towards
reducing noise and signal bleed.
Clean Signals For A Clean Life
All of these topics discussed above will help keep your signals
clean but what really is most important, folks, is the old garbage
in garbage out theory. If you keep your signal that you are recording
or sampling clean and hot in the first place, chances are it's
gonna pretty much stay that way unless you make a major league
effort to screw it up. If you're sampling and the samples always
come out noisy from the get go shorten your signal path. For example,
if you're sampling off of a record try to plug the turntable directly
into the sampler or from the DJ mixer directly into the sampler.
Cut out all unneeded connections and see what happens. And don't
forget to ground the deck. Lack of grounding is public enemy number
one when it comes to noise.
In other words, it's much easier to record clean and hot signals
in the first place than to try and clean up the lame ones later.
I know it sounds elementary but it is, in my experience, the one
tenet that's most often overlooked by me and others when we get
excited about a new idea that just came to mind and want to get
it down before we lose it. Patience and discipline regarding the
process lead to less headaches in the mixdown, believe me. In
a way, it's just like those X-Games guys, who I bet still work
on the fundamentals even though they're already doing the 540s
like it's nothing.
Anyway, that's it. Cheers to all of you. And before I go, I just
want to thank all of you for making the Underground Files possible
for us. It's been a half a year now and I've had a great time
so far. You, the reader (and, of course, the music) are really
what it's all about. So to all of you, as well as the entire absotively
awesome staff and consortium at UF, hats off and much respect.
Have a great summer, all, and stay the hell out of the heat.
Andrew Freid
15Pearl Music
September 1999
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