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mystery mic noise
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Jason Huggins
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Location: In the souls of a million jeans

PostPosted: Thu Nov 20, 2014 11:40 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

You could even go higher. I run my buffer at 512 samples. The only reason you really NEED a low buffer is if you are tracking in headphones and need to deal with the latency. Low buffer puts greater strain on the CPU and results in pops and clicks. High buffer results in greater latency but less CPU strain, and thus no pops and clicks.

That is...IF that is what's going on. I use hardware monitoring for my headphones, so a high buffer is no biggie for me.
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Foog
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 20, 2014 1:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I used to track everything in headphones. Then I bought some snazzy monitors and have taken to using them all the time instead - it's liberating not to have the headphones on! (not so much liberating when I have to redo a take because of some breath or noise I would have noticed at the time had I been wearing said headphones, but still!) At any rate, my ordinary workflow can stand a higher buffer rate. Will set it at 512 right off and fingers crossed for that reducing or even eliminating my clicks and pops.

However... the skype-patching and whatnot still may require a smaller buffer. I am still trying to figure it all out - and still getting great help from the terribly patient folks at Audient, by the way! The thought of needing a lower buffer rate for directed sessions is troublesome, since if the buffer rate is indeed my problem, then a directed session is most likely to have the clicking issue crop up as well as the absolute worst time to have said problems occur. Yeeesh.
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Jason Huggins
The Gates of Troy


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PostPosted: Thu Nov 20, 2014 2:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I do Source Connect and Skype session every day with a 512 buffer. I use headphones on Skype and Monitors on SC. Not a single issue for me Smile Is there a reason that lower buffer would be better for a directed session? The delay is milliseconds even with a high buffer, it really shouldn't make that much of a difference.

And...actually, I don't know that the I/O buffer size affects Skype or Source Connect. That is the DAW buffer size, so it shouldn't affect anything other than your own monitoring if you use software monitoring.
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Foog
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 20, 2014 2:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

That's good to know, Jason. I can live with a bit of delay/latency, it's the "echo" effect I have been hearing when trying to set up a Skype directed session that has me irked. If I can have a higher buffer without the echo effect, I'll be a happy man, slight delay or no delay.

I will readily admit that I am out of my depth with this sort of thing, never having had to set up a mix minus before. And I keep running into problems - for example, either stupid Pro Tools doesn't let me turn off input monitoring, or stupid Andrew can't figure out how to do it. At any rate, the nice Audient people have sent me a screenshot and some notes for a setting that will monitor the session through Pro Tools only, and not through the id22, which I am told will kill the echo (if not the slight delay). Here's hoping this solves my Skype patching echo problems, and that the higher buffer solved my clickety popping problems.
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chrisvoco
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 20, 2014 11:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

If it does turn out to have been fixed by upping the buffer size, what, I wonder, would have been the common thing your computer was otherwise busy doing to make it ( a ) intermittent and ( b ) fairly regular interval of about 230ms or so (neighborhood of a quarter second)? Do you not discipline your computer enough? You have to use a firm hand with these machines or they'll take over.

Did neighborhood dogs react when you played back the adjusted file? Smile
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Foog
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 19, 2014 3:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Alas, the buffer size change did not seem to help any, the noise has still been popping up at random-seeming intervals. Here's another sample if anyone is curious...

https://soundcloud.com/andrew-fogarasi/micnoise-dec10-2014

This is a raw recording, I didn't even change the gain on the recorded file. You can hear the clicking/static before and after I speak, as well as during. It seems much more pronounced while I speak.

Here's where it gets odd. If I unplug the xlr cable at the microphone, I get blissful silence. No clicks or static. So, it must be an analogue issue, right? Something wrong with the mic. But when I restart my computer and plug the mic back in, the noise is absent. So it must be a digital problem, right?

What the heck kind of noise is generated at the mic-end of things, but is resolved by restarting the computer? I am even fresher out of ideas than I was before. Sure is frustrating though. So. Very. Frustrating!

As always, any suggestions are greatly appreciated. (Almost) nothing is too nutty to consider at this point, so have at it!
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dwpthe3rd
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 19, 2014 7:50 am    Post subject: Just a thought... Reply with quote

I'd try switching out the CAD for a different mic. If the noise continues the mic is eliminated as problem source. Next try the preamp used prior to the Audient. This should narrow down the search area.

Good Luck !!
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chrisvoco
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 19, 2014 8:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Still think it's not an analog issue. Consider that unplugging your cable and eliminating the analog input signal entirely then means ADC is constantly seeing essentially nothing.

Do try a different mic and cable, or some other source. I'd think that, if the problem was prior to conversion, the blips and pops would be far more funky and less regular. Do you have some line-level something that you can connect to the (I assume unused) other input on the id22?
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vkuehn
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 19, 2014 9:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Foog: I've been sitting here on the bus-stop bench watching the parade of this conversation pass by. I am having a now-and-then bit of noise/crackle that I cannot isolate.

Here is the next thing I am going to check. One day I had my studio monitors temporarily plugged into the OUTPUT on the Audient (output is balanced) and my monitor speakers (powered speakers) have a tolerant balanced input. My wiring in-place used to come out of an un-balanced on my Audophile 24/96 card and through an external unbalanced volume control. I am now wondering if some of the noisy recording I did was when the un-balanced wiring was between the Audient and the monitors. Next week I am going back and re-create that set-up to see if upsetting the output circuit causes noise in the recording circuit. In some devices I would expect such an upset. I'm not in a mood to place a bet on what the Audient does at a time like that.

Lesson: when you have intermittent problems, look for unusual things you do in your set-up from time to time.
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Foog
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 19, 2014 1:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for the input everyone.

I almost wish this were a more consistently occurring problem (careful what you wish for!), because as it stands it happens infrequently enough that I am loathe to switch things around for the several days it would take me to have any sense of whether it made a difference. Heck, I still can't say with any real degree of certainty whether changing the buffer rate weeks ago has had any impact or not.

I keep hoping to switch out the microphone to try and isolate the problem on the spot when it happens, but the mic noise stubbornly refuses to crop up at a time when I am not in too much of a hurry to do this (unpacking, finding room for, and warming up the tubes for my second mic is a slowwwww process).

Weeks ago I ordered a new stand so that I can wire up both mics in parallel, in the hopes of getting to the bottom of this issue. (but also because, well, I've never done it and two mics at once would be wicked cool) I'm still waiting on the shipment. What kind of fool orders a non-Christmas present just in time for the Christmas shipping bottleneck?

A quick question for y'all: I have never plugged the xlr back into the mic with the system on and active - is that something I can do as long as I mute the speakers, or is it inadvisable? I was hoping to check on what effect, if any, just disconnecting and then reconnecting the mic without restarting the computer might have on the issue.
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Foog
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 19, 2014 1:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ugh! Why did I tempt fate by suggesting the problem occur more often? Within minutes of hitting "submit" on my post, it happened again.

This time it was more intermittent. THAT is what I hate the most about this - it is not only unpredictable in how often it happens, it is unpredictable in how it manifests itself, and I worry that I might be submitting some subtly degraded audio sometimes without knowing it.

Here's a link to today's clickety-argh:

https://soundcloud.com/andrew-fogarasi/micnoiseredux-dec19



And I just realised that my soundcloud account is nothing but a series of mic noise recordings. How depressing is that?
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vkuehn
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 19, 2014 5:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Foog: Something to try. The recordings you posted are wall-to-wall head-baning-sound that is continuous. If it is NOT your voice and teeth and other mouth initiated clicks, then maybe the changing voltages of the audio are causing some failing capacitor or something to discharge and click.

So, what if in the middle of your high-intensity one-syllable-squished-up-against the next, you just stopped talking for 5 to 10 seconds. Silence. Dead air. Then resume talking. Then resume silence.

The first logical conclusion might be: since it ONLY clicks when I am talking, it must me my mouth!

BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE.

At that point you try another recording where you talk intensely, and then between chatter sessions you make like Bing Crosby or a church choir singer just warming up and voice a steady tone, getting louder and louder and then backing off little by little. If you generate clicks while enunciating words, maybe the mouth IS the problem. If your steady-state "crooning" causes a click now and the as your singing volume is getting louder and softer, maybe you have some bad components inside the circuits of the audio chain.

As Yogi used to say in the Saturday morning cartoons..... "Ya gotta be smarter than the average bear."
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Foog
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 19, 2014 7:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

When I first noticed the noise I tried variations of silence and talking to see what happens to the clicks/crackles. It seems they are there whether I am yakking or not, just more noticeable when I speak. For example, if you crank up the sample I posted earlier (not the latest one, but this one: https://soundcloud.com/andrew-fogarasi/micnoise-dec10-2014) you can hear the clicking continue through the silence at the end of the recording.

Interesting that you mention a singing tone, Vernon. That is exactly what I tried after restarting the computer earlier this afternoon. I heard a few suspicious crackly sounds on a recording, and wasn't sure whether it was my mystery woe again. So I sang a long note for about 8 seconds and listened back to try and determine whether the problem had reared its ugly head again. (it hadn't, at least not yet at that point)

So what I have is a noise that occurs randomly, is louder or at least more noticeable when I speak, and seems to occur with varying intensity. (and it's the last one that has me most worried, since I fear that there is clicking affecting my recordings more often than I am aware of)
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Andrew Fogarasi


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Foog
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 12, 2015 1:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I still haven't managed to track down the cause of this noise. Sometimes I'll go a day or two without it occurring, other times it'll happen multiple times a day. Today it cropped up during a directed session - not good!

Here is a snippet from earlier today..

https://soundcloud.com/andrew-fogarasi/footwear-ad-scrapped-take

A couple of details worth noting:
The noise happens at seemingly random times.
Restarting the computer makes the noise stop (and it seems like after a restart I am noise-free for anywhere from one hour to two days afterwards)
I've tried pretty much all the fixes suggested in this thread (with the exception of swapping mics - I have no free power outlets) all to no avail.

I am flummoxed. Got no clue what I can do and am just about at my wits end here.

If anyone has any ideas, or can point me towards someone who might be able to help, I'll be eternally grateful. I'll name my first born after you! (Note: I can't really do this unless your name is Peter)
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Adric83
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 12, 2015 1:32 pm    Post subject: I had a similar issue!! Reply with quote

Foog!

I dropped off the radar here late last year for a while (around the time you posted this issue!), I am sorry I did, for I had a problem with my CADe100s as well last year!

It was a hissing with crackle and rustle noise and I couldn't figure out what it was, I tried other mics, cables, through pre, direct into interface, etc.

Turns out it was the mic. I contacted CAD and it was still under warranty so I just paid for shipping back to them and they actually fixed and returned it very quickly!

Your sounds aren't identical to the ones I had, but similar, and same mic, it drove me nuts too, and I'm hoping this might help you out.

I think I even posted on here somewhere about the problem and got good feedback which led me to believe it was the mic. You could try searching my posts (there aren't many) to see whether you notice similarities.

It's been working like a charm since I got it back, so I'd say reach out to CAD Audio and see what they can do for you.

- Bill
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