Why does my mixer put out white noise?

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
January 25, 2018
1 reply
8234 views

I am new to recording sound and do not know much about recording audio. When I plug in my mixing board into the sound card of my computer, I get white noise in the input, and when Audition records audio recorded from the mixer it also records the white noise. What causes the white noise and what can be done to not get the noise? Also: when I tried to take the white noise out with noise reduction in audition, I get another weird noise that makes the recording sound very low quality. What should I do to get a better digital quality recording? thanks.

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SteveG_AudioMasters_

Community Expert

Need to know way more about your system than you've told us, I'm afraid - but one of the common mistakes people new to mixers make is to plug them into a mic socket! That would certainly account for all the noise. It needs to be plugged into a line input, and then something called 'gain staging' has to take place. This is the process whereby you set the output of the mixer so that it feeds your sound device at the correct level, and nothing is over (or under) recorded. Only then will you be able to use the mixer sensibly.

So, what sound device are you using, and what sort of mixer is it?

mikeirvan1980Author

Known Participant

This particular mixer I'm using currently is a tiny portable one called a "maker hart 2 Just Mixer." It is however not connected to my computer via mic socket. It is connected through a USB port. How do we know that our mixer is fed at the correct level?

Also: Another mixer I have used from time to time is a bigger one and it also would pick up white noise and was connected also via USB and that was a behringer model (can't remember the exact model number right off hand). Any more help on getting rid of white noise would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Bob Howes

Inspiring

One quick thing to check:

Go to Edit/Preferences/Audio Hardware and check you have the correct type of driver selected (you'll need to check the spec of your mixer(s)--cheaper ones may use MME which is the generic Windows driver while better ones my provide you with dedicated ASIO drivers. Once you have the correct driver chosen, you'll be able to check that Audition is actually recording your mixer (drop down menus naming the hardware.

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