I have tried every possible arrangement to fix this noise I get in my guitar DI recordings through to my audio Interface. They are very pronounced with gain and on any palm mutes, not just on the 6th, 7th, or 8th string. The levels of the gain are usually very low and have been tested for instrument level input with guitar cables and Line level input with XLR cables from a DI BOX. I leave -6db of headroom based on the lowest, bassiest palm mutes so there can never be clipping.
Here are the audio samples to here the problem;
DI TRACK (The hiss is still present just turn up volume)
NEURAL DSP FORTIN NAMELESS SUITE
I have tried both at my home in two different rooms and even tested my setup at a Music Store (ANOTHER BUILDING). I have;
- Tried 4 guitars
- Tried a UMC404HD, Focusrite Clarret USB PRE2 and the Music Stores’s own Bus powered Presonus interface
- 4 different audio drivers (Behringer, Focusrite, Presonus and ASIO4ALL v2)
- 2 computers (1 laptop, 1 pc) both on registered Windows 10 and good quality specs
- different guitar cables
- a 1ft patch cable
- Isolated power with no wall socket power by using a laptop on battery power and a bus powered interface, so no “dirty power”.
- a DI BOX with GROUND ACTIVATED. (granted the DI BOX is a no-name brand for <$20, not a Radial DI box)
- Changed the sample rate and the Block sizes.
- 2 versions of amp software by different developers (NEURAL DSP and IGNITE), furthermore they both work on DI’s that sound great I got from Toontrack so I know it isn’t the software.
- Standing away from the interface and monitor
- Facing away from the interface and monitor
- Turning off the lights (although not the powerboard in my house).
- There is no hiss out of the outputs of the interfaces for monitoring other sources of sound so it is only a problem of the inputs.
The only possible problems could be…
- EMI OR RFI affecting the signal which I will try to resolve (if it is the problem) with Ferrite beads I have just bought that are being delivered soon. They will wrap around the instrument cables and any other cables I use. I do not know if this is the problem because the noise isn’t audible in real amps and is still present in two different buildings.
- Something wrong with the Recording settings on Windows 10. I am pretty sure that the only thing I have done is set the interfaces as the default playback and recording device, that should be enough right?
- All 3 interfaces have inferior preamps and/or the signals are compressed and so I need an external preamp such as an sE Dynamite in line preamp which adds +28db of gain so that the interface gain can be minimized.
Please if anyone can help,
Thanks