Weird high-frequency distortion in my recording..

[Morgan C]

Was recording vocals the other day and noticed an odd high-frequency distortion in the recordings. It gets worse as you get louder.. I'm going SM57 -> cheapish cable (but not bad quality, may be a problem?) -> FP10. Its not THAT noticeable, and is barely noticeable in the mix, but it does get worse after compression and stuff and obviously is not something I want.

Any ideas what it could be?

 

[chonchball]

your signal chain effects everything. the mic made be a little bad, you may be pushing a pre a little too hard, the cable could have a weird EQ to it especially if it's of lower than professional quality.

57's have a tendency to pick up certain frequencies you DON'T want and accent them, in this case, your vocalist may have a tone to his voice that the 57 is just making sound strange... that's just speculation though having not heard the distortion.

make sure you're not clipping anywhere on your way to the track you're recording and when you compress, only compress it enough to take away the dynamics, don't try to limit the track so hard that you're squashing the wanted sound right down to the noise floor where all that unwanted garbage is

 

[Morgan C]

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/324723/Distortion Sm57.mp3

Here's a small clip. Its not overly obvious in this, so I did a fairly wide boost at around 4.5k. The vocals are by no means unnaturally EQ'd, and have maybe 5-7dB of compression max on them. You can hear it quite clearly on the second part of 'cage'. It was worse the other day but couldn't recreate it atm. Its happened both with me and the singer in this clip, so I don't really think its the voice.

 

[lolzgreg]

Does it happen with ANY mic? If so, your electrical outlet is probably causing some kind of ground loopish issue. Try plugging in the comp/fp10 elsewhere.

-Greg

 

[chonchball]

the grounding is a good thing to check definitely, but in that clip it doesn't sound like a loop to me. you're right, it's very subtle, i wish i could hear what you were talking about when it was happening worse.

since we're on a metal forum i was assuming it was gonna be screamy vocals!

any particular reason you chose a 57 to record this passage? i feel like some kind of condenser would be better for singing.

 

[Morgan C]

the grounding is a good thing to check definitely, but in that clip it doesn't sound like a loop to me. you're right, it's very subtle, i wish i could hear what you were talking about when it was happening worse.

since we're on a metal forum i was assuming it was gonna be screamy vocals!

any particular reason you chose a 57 to record this passage? i feel like some kind of condenser would be better for singing.

I'll try check the grounding later..

I'll also try and get a more extreme clip. I can't sing but I was just testing and it was pretty severe then. I forgot to save it tho so I don't have the clips anymore.

As for the 57.. thats because I'm pretty poor and atm just trying to get enough mics to mic up a kit. 57 is 'good enough' for now.

 

[Morgan C]

Right.. just been messing around with drums, and all the files are really noisy.

So I think either its the cables (shouldn't be.. they're apparently Neutrik (sp?)) or the grounding (this can cause noise as well as distortions, yes?). I'll try and experiment a bit tonight to see if I can narrow it down a bit.

 

[Taurean]

Right.. just been messing around with drums, and all the files are really noisy.

So I think either its the cables (shouldn't be.. they're apparently Neutrik (sp?)) or the grounding (this can cause noise as well as distortions, yes?). I'll try and experiment a bit tonight to see if I can narrow it down a bit.

Hi morgoe, well the Fp10 is an all inclusive type of unit if I'm not mistaken. These types of units that offer both conversion and micpreamplification within the same casing can at times be problematic. You overall increase the chances of noise from more circuitry and/or the processes each by themselves can modulate onto the other. Having said that though, it is difficult to evaluate an MP3 due to its own artifacts. But in this example it's subtle. Subtle to the point that one could say its just a matter of a resonance peak. Especially there being a female vocalist involved ie higher frequencies/harmonics. Try another mic and see what happens. If it's still happening, it could be the aforementioned situation. Or the mic pre not being able to properly amplify those high frequencies causing intermodulated distortion. It is hard to say with this kind of subtelty though.

 

[John_C]

are you sure you're not accidently working at a low sample rate, or recording straight to a compressed format or something

 

[LeviathanMetal]

Aha! I tend to notice this a lot when i record with a 57, not quite sure if the 57 is knackered but havent been able to waste the money only to find that its not.

 

[Morgan C]

Will bump this thread later when I get a chance to try other mics, but I think this could be a symptom of what I'm describing here: http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/production-tips/502950-firepod-fp10-users-favour.html
The headphone bleeding into the input. Could cause some phasiness and distortion. I'll try and recreate it more obviously later, and try different mics, tho.

 

[Taurean]

Will bump this thread later when I get a chance to try other mics, but I think this could be a symptom of what I'm describing here: http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/production-tips/502950-firepod-fp10-users-favour.html
The headphone bleeding into the input. Could cause some phasiness and distortion. I'll try and recreate it more obviously later, and try different mics, tho.

yea definitely try other mics to rule out the interface first. The headphone issue is another factor in as mentioned above all inclusive units, so it's possible well. Especially headphones and their high impedance.