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pdfnet · Posted - Fri Jul 11, 2003 12:12 am

We live in an old condo, impossible to completely cool with the central A/C, thus, a window fan.

Also, in the only room I have for recording, there are half a dozen servers I use for various tasks.

Short of turning off the fan and melting and turning off the 'puters, I have found no really great solutions to the sound of an ocean pier whoosing into my microphone.

I'm using an Audix OM-2 (sold as a good mic for noisy environments) and a Behringer 1600 compressor/expander/gate, with CEP2.1 and Sonic Foundry's Noise Reducer.

And, yes, I can get rid of the noise using the combo of the four. But, the gain on my Behringer mixer (MB1200 or something) is so low that I have pile on a ton of amplificaton in CEP2.1.

Thoughts?

P.S. I tried covering the area with the servers with one of those pads they sell to relieve back pain during sleep. It worked some but mostly it just made my servers sweat more (even with ample air space behind them). Also tried wrapping a small sample of acoustic foam around most of the mic - sounded like I was in a barrel.

ozpeter · Location: Australia

Despite my vow to reduce my posts, I can't help commenting that this really does sound like a worst-case scenario. You can't get out of the room with a red rover, currently going cheap, maybe?

- Ozpeter

Aha, I've just twigged that you are the guy with two of the little chaps!

Graeme · Member Location: Spain

Sometimes, one just has to bite the bullet and admit that the current environment is simply unsutable for the job in hand. I fear this is what are going to have to do.

SteveG · Location: United Kingdom

You have to fix this at source - what I'd do is create a low-acoustic-transmission externally ventilated environment for the PCs. In english, this is a big box with carefully constructed walls, and direct ventilation to the outside world. All you've done so far is to play around with acoustic treatment - you haven't mitigated the source at all, and this is what you need to do, because it's a transmission problem, not a treatment one.

You don't need a high mass construction, because most of the noise is relatively high frequency. But it will need to be double-skinned, and preferrably have the inner layer structurally isolated as far as possible from the outer layer. And it will need to be loose filled with fibre wool, or whatever, to cut down the internal reflection and retransmission. Even small holes into the room are to be avoided - they let through more noise than you'd ever credit! So your connection route has to be carefully planned, and ultimately sealed. There are ways of doing this quite successfully if you use a bit of ingenuity and common sense.

This almost certainly is fixable. I'd seriously consider using ducting to the window fan just for the servers, and leaving the A/C with rather less work to do keeping the rest of the room cool. With some care, you could get an isolated forced-air flow over the PCs and keep them cooler than they were anyway!

Craig Jackman · Location: Canada

While I'll go so far as to agree that the noise problem here is fixable, I wonder if it's the best solution. It'll be expensive and bulky building boxes to quiet and still provide cooling air to all the computers. If you can't get enough AC into the room as is and need the window fan, you'll have to update the AC ($$$$$$). Is there no there room you can record in? Use extender cables and signal boosters for video monitor and keyboard? Run good quality line level cables from the recording room to the computer room? In most decent studios, there is a noisy machine room where all noisy things (tape machines, computers) reside. The studios themselves are quiet environments where the work gets done.