How to clean up Guitar hum

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
filter_7
Posts: 389
Joined: Sun Feb 05, 2012 10:05 am

How to clean up Guitar hum

Post by filter_7 » Tue Aug 21, 2012 9:55 am

Hi, i use a direct recording with that setup:
Guitar > Tubeman 2 > audio card > Ableton > Waves GTR 3

I got a very good sound but even in the cleanest setting with no distortion i got a little background hum. I would like to have a superclean silence between notes in the quiet musical situations.

Do you know a way to clean it up? Maybe a professional solution , NOT a noise gate plugin which cut out the notes decay, thanks!

stoersignal
Posts: 500
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Location: vienna

Re: How to clean up Guitar hum

Post by stoersignal » Tue Aug 21, 2012 10:53 am

are u using balanced cables? a Di Box?
have you tried a DC-offset Killer?

+ there are many plugins for that purpose

filter_7
Posts: 389
Joined: Sun Feb 05, 2012 10:05 am

Re: How to clean up Guitar hum

Post by filter_7 » Tue Aug 21, 2012 11:22 am

yes, balanced cables and the Tubeman is a tube Di Box.

Never had an offset killer, would be nice to hear something about it from you, thanks.

stoersignal
Posts: 500
Joined: Fri Oct 22, 2010 9:43 pm
Location: vienna

Re: How to clean up Guitar hum

Post by stoersignal » Tue Aug 21, 2012 11:57 am

have a look at live`s utility or saturator! they both have a DC button, which is supposed to do that

crumhorn
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Re: How to clean up Guitar hum

Post by crumhorn » Tue Aug 21, 2012 2:24 pm

the lowest pitch in standard guitar tuning is about 77Hz so start by cutting everything below about 75Hz.
"The banjo is the perfect instrument for the antisocial."

(Allow me to plug my guitar scale visualiser thingy - www.fretlearner.com)

Piplodocus
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Location: Southampton, UK

Re: How to clean up Guitar hum

Post by Piplodocus » Tue Aug 21, 2012 3:51 pm

How good quality/old is the tube in it? New good quality tubes can sort hum.

Then there's other general ideas too though such as move your guitar (i.e. pickups) further from the PC or anything with PSUs/Electromagnetic stuff in it. Standing up close to an amp with big transformers is a great way to make you guitar hum due to the big transformers in it.
Live relevant things: Suite 12, MacBook M1 Max, RME UFX II (kext drivers), Push 1

trevox
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Re: How to clean up Guitar hum

Post by trevox » Tue Aug 21, 2012 4:19 pm

Sonic Foundry's Noise reduction plugin is what I have always used. Probably a Sony version now...

You take a small sampling of the noise itself and get the plugin to analyse it. Then you can apply across an entire recording. A lot of adjustment may be necessary to try and reduce as much noise as possible without affecting the recording itself, but I've found it to work really well.

filter_7
Posts: 389
Joined: Sun Feb 05, 2012 10:05 am

Re: How to clean up Guitar hum

Post by filter_7 » Tue Aug 21, 2012 4:23 pm

@Piplodocus: i think it's more than 1 year old tube, so changing it would be a good idea. I record directly so i don't have an amp with big trasformers; however you made me think about my audio stuff transformers near to the pc... I will try to go far away from them...

@crumhorn: your eq advice is a good idea, i'll try it.

another cause of the hum could be a heavy eq setting in the GTR3 preset (even the cleanest one), 'cause i noticed that if i turn the vst off the noise is very very low. But maybe GTR3 increases an already existing guitar hum.

simmerdown
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Location: Northwest Nowhere

Re: How to clean up Guitar hum

Post by simmerdown » Tue Aug 21, 2012 6:35 pm

i rec (bass) at a medium volume, say peeking at -3 then bring the track gain down til any hum is gone, then waves x-noise to taste

arrived at by trial and error, probably not the 'pro' way, but it works (getting out my umbrella and raincoat now)

Muzik 4 Machines
Posts: 769
Joined: Thu Oct 22, 2009 9:35 am

Re: How to clean up Guitar hum

Post by Muzik 4 Machines » Tue Aug 21, 2012 7:12 pm

also, if you use a CRT, turn it off ( more like a 90's advice tho, not a lot of people using crt's nowdays)

Fat_Stanley
Posts: 33
Joined: Mon Feb 20, 2012 11:46 pm

Re: How to clean up Guitar hum

Post by Fat_Stanley » Wed Aug 22, 2012 11:21 am

If you've nailed some recordings and the hum isn't causing you a problem where you're playing you could try gating the audio so that you get that silence you're after between notes.

filter_7
Posts: 389
Joined: Sun Feb 05, 2012 10:05 am

Re: How to clean up Guitar hum

Post by filter_7 » Wed Aug 22, 2012 2:54 pm

I tried to gate the audio but this is not working for clean guitar notes at low volume.

The hum is not so big, but would be nice to have a professionally clean recording.

Tone Deft
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Re: How to clean up Guitar hum

Post by Tone Deft » Wed Aug 22, 2012 3:04 pm

filter_7 wrote:The hum is not so big, but would be nice to have a professionally clean recording.
hum is part of the ambient sound of the guitar, let it go.

a gate should be enough, anything beyond that is part of the instrument.

yay humbuckers. ;)
In my life
Why do I smile
At people who I'd much rather kick in the eye?
-Moz

doghouse
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Re: How to clean up Guitar hum

Post by doghouse » Wed Aug 22, 2012 4:14 pm

crumhorn wrote:the lowest pitch in standard guitar tuning is about 77Hz so start by cutting everything below about 75Hz.
Most times, the hum is actually at double the line frequency (so 100 or 120 Hz). A very steep notch filter at that freq can be used to reduce hum.

Use downward expansion rather than a noise gate to deal with hum at low volume levels.

But the best way to get rid of hum is at the source, make sure the guitar is properly shielded and grounded (guess what, out of the box very few are).

filter_7
Posts: 389
Joined: Sun Feb 05, 2012 10:05 am

Re: How to clean up Guitar hum

Post by filter_7 » Mon Sep 03, 2012 11:17 am

@doghouse: ouch, i never thought about guitar grounding, i will check that.
One thing: how can i be sure about that without being 'expert'? Is there a kind of box that can measure the hum?

I have a Tubeman too, so i must check every ring of the gear chain.

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