Very cool trick to deal with noisy amp

[SimonTaddio_Qc]

Just did some experiments with this and it works good.

Situation: you have a very annoying noise/hiss coming out of the amp, and the noise gate was killing the tone or sustain too much for your taste?

What I did is record a track of the guitar NOT being played through the amp so just the hiss came out.

Invert the phase 180 degrees of this tracks, sum to mono bus with the regular take and you pretty much killed all noise.

Hope it helps someone

 

[Devon8822]

fantastic idea, I would like to try this out, but what do you mean by sum to mono bus?

 

[SimonTaddio_Qc]

I mean I summed the regular noisy guitar track (the one with the riffs) with the track that's noise only to a mono aux track

I guess this is optional, but I like to have it under one fader, plus if you bounce your track that way, the noise will already be gone, but this is 100% optional

 

[ttrentt]

Brilliant idea. Can't wait to try this for fun.

 

[LeSedna]

I have trouble understanding how it can cancel out since it has not been recorded at the same time as the actual take ?

 

[SimonTaddio_Qc]

well, obiviously you can't change the settings on the amp nor the mic placement, but it does cancel electrical hum and such

This would probably also work with ampsims as well

 

[Tamarocker88]

This would probably also work with ampsims as well

Brutal protip man! I'm gonna have to try this for sure!

 

[luismars]

It has to be almost phase aligned to reduce the noise, right? but it's white noise, how do you manage to align it?

 

[Fama]

Well I guess it won't cancel completely since it's not phase aligned, but there's still stuff happening (I think it might be called comb filtering? Not sure.) even if it's not the same performance.

 

[ForHerDeadEyes]

Yeah, I've discovered this trick aswell.. it works pretty good..
It won't cancel all the noise.. but it will (more often than not) be huge improvement..
This can also be done when recording guitar or bass DI.. If it's noisy for some reason.. you can record a track with the git/bass plugged in, but without you playing anything.. Then invert that.. etc..

 

[SimonTaddio_Qc]

It has to be almost phase aligned to reduce the noise, right? but it's white noise, how do you manage to align it?

Well, as soon as the phase is not perfectly aligned, you'll have a drop in volume.
If both phases are completely inverted (theatrically and with simple sounds) you'll lose all volume.

You may have to zoom in and do a close-up on the wave form itself (alt+shift+mouse scroll in Pro Tools) and align with slip edit just a tiny bit.

Of course, the better solution is to have no noise to begin with, but this is a cruel world...

 

[LeSedna]

Have you compared it to using a noise reduction plugin to see if it's a better solution for that particular use in term of tone sucking ?

 

[SimonTaddio_Qc]

Not yet, I'm in the process of moving this week, so pretty much all the gear is packed up already.
As I just got my hands on a rackmount 4 channel noise gate, I'll try to make some sort of shootout between hardware, plugin and the phase thing.

So as far as tone goes, I can't say for sure yet, but with this method, you don't have to worry about the gate gating quieter parts or killing the tail end of your wave short.

 

[JamesNorman]

This is in theory what a balanced line does

 

[espartaco]

is this not the same to use a noise reduction plug in?

 

[SimonTaddio_Qc]

A noise reduction will kill everything below it's threshold, that's the slight difference. In many cases, a noise gate or a noise reduction plugin or hardware will do. If the track doesn't have a lot of soft dynamics going on, and it's not killing your tone, then I'd say go the easiest way and use the plugin

 

[Fama]

A noise reduction will kill everything below it's threshold, that's the slight difference. In many cases, a noise gate or a noise reduction plugin or hardware will do. If the track doesn't have a lot of soft dynamics going on, and it's not killing your tone, then I'd say go the easiest way and use the plugin

Actually, I think some noise reduction plugins can analyse the hum and then remove it (I think it's something similar as to the trick mentioned here).

 

[SimonTaddio_Qc]

Fucking plague-ins...
Yeah, maybe, but admit it's fucking way less cool and thought-out, don't you think?

 

[smy1]

Jesus, fellas. It's a good idea. Stop theorizing if it works or not. Try it and decide if you want to use it. If not, then not. I've really had it with the "this might not work because it's not optimal" attitudes on the web ...

Thanks for the suggestion, Simon.

 

[SimonTaddio_Qc]

I love you