Best way to remove guitar amp noise?

Can any of you tell me a good way to remove guitar amp noise? Specifically, when i am recording guitar, the noise a tube amp makes when you aren't playing is what I want to remove. Of course, you can hear the noise before and while playing if you listen carefully. Now, if we were only dealing with heavy distorted guitars this would not be an issue. However, with cleaner tones or finger style guitar it drives me crazy. I am using top end pro guitars and amps so it is not cheap gear.

Is there a way to sample the noise, invert it 180 to create phase that will remove the noise and then apply that to the entire track? If so, can someone step me through the process please?

Thanks

Joe Howard

Right. You can edit the space in between in Sonar. Alternatively, you can use a noise gate. However, the first step is always recording itself. I've never had noise from a tube amp be loud enough on the clean channel to be audible in the mix.

Yea, I am using humbuckers, LCD screen and am far away from any other gear. This is just the noise you get when a tube amp is powered on. Obviously it continues while playing but in a mix it drives me crazy. the more tracks I record, the more noise.

I would hope that there is a plugin that can sample the noise, cancel it out and apply it to the entire track. But maybe that is not this case.

My tube pre is set for a good signal to noise ratio and I have a quality sound card. Everything is doing its job properly so if there was a way to "carve out" this noise the problem would be sovled.

Any more ideas?

Thanks

Joe

Have a look out for some noise reduction software. I use the one that comes with Soundforge and provided you've got a few seconds of background noise only for it to analyze then it will do a pretty good job of removing background noise & some hum without affecting the guitar sound too much or causing too many artifacts.

Also have a look at Klean Boy from Elevata http://www.elevayta.com/ I've not used it but it seems like a good price and there is a Demo download and there are mp3 examples.

Andy

'Wavepad' (Google it) is a good freebie and includes an excellent noise/hiss remover.

Turn the amp up louder so you don't need such a hot mic. Crank it! Your neighbors will love you!

If it is broadband noise, you cannot sample it, invert it and add it back like those bose headphones. They work on the principal that the noise is coherent - like jet engine noise which has a definitive spectral content.

IF it is purely 60 cycle hum, you could theoretically take it down, but there is not a ton of guitar down at 60 hz anyway so you could filter it. Plus at 60 hz, you are in the turf of the bass and the kick drum.

I would suggest an expander. It is the opposite of a compressor. A compressor takes signals above a threshold and boosts it. An expander takes signals below a level and squashes it. It will do nothing for you while you are playing, but in quiet passages, it will kill the sound.

I dont believe that LCD monitors cause a ton of EM interference.

My guess is that if you have a guitar with humbuckers and the amp is clean, you are picking up 60 cycle noise somewhere. After all, the guitar signal is very weak and requires tons and tons of gain. Have you checked for ground issues? Do you have stomp boxes on a different ground than the amp?

Recording guitar is tough because of the noise, but not impossible.

ORIGINAL: easyjoey

Yea, I am using humbuckers, LCD screen and am far away from any other gear. This is just the noise you get when a tube amp is powered on. Obviously it continues while playing but in a mix it drives me crazy. the more tracks I record, the more noise.

I would hope that there is a plugin that can sample the noise, cancel it out and apply it to the entire track. But maybe that is not this case.

My tube pre is set for a good signal to noise ratio and I have a quality sound card. Everything is doing its job properly so if there was a way to "carve out" this noise the problem would be sovled.

Any more ideas?

Thanks

Joe

I can't BELIEVE that no one has suggested this (unless I read too quickly and just missed it):

Change your tubes!

Even a single bad (old, dying) tube can make a tube amp hiss like crazy. Get some new tubes and see if that doesn't help greatly. I'll bet you a 12AX7 that it does.

HTH,
Ed

Um Ed
I have 12 tube amps including some going back into the 50s. Some of them have the original tubes. I know that guitar amps can cause problems but this one sounds like something else. A tube only needs to be changed when it is bad. All in all, they are pretty reliable.

I think it is a grounding issue. If he is getting 60 cycle on humbuckers with a clean guitar sound, it has to be ground loop related.

HEY OP
What about your guitar cable? Any chance you could find another 1/4" cable and sub it out? Ditto for every other cable along the way. What stomp boxes are you using? Can you bypass them all?

Space, I have some oldies, too, but it's not uncommon for a fauly tube to cause noise. Certainly worth a look. Could even be a tube seating issue. Might even be worth having a tube amp tech take a look (assuming that the noise is new; i.e., if the amp was quieter before and is noiser now - although we don't know that to be the case here).

Thanks for your input so far.... hopefully this will answer some questions:

Amps: 1965 Fender Twin or 2008 Mesa 5:50. Both in excellent condition.
Guitars: Gretsch White Falcon, Telecaster deluxe, Gretsch 6120. All of these guitars have humbuckers.
Pedals: Way too many to list but they all sit on a pro board with shielded power.
Mic: SM57 - Blue Baby Bottle, SM58
Pre : DBX 376

This noise happens with or without the computer on or anything plugged into the amp at all. This is the standard hiss that a tube amp makes. I moved these amps to other rooms with the same result. It is not interferance from anything, just the nature of tube amps.

The 60Hz hum you guys are discussing - is that the same as the noise you get with single coil pickups when you turn on a distortion box? If so, that is much different and much more prominant. This noise is just a hiss and gets louder the higher the amp volume is. So, my mics are picking this up as it is being recorded.

So hopefully that info helps. I don't think I can get rid of the noise from the amps so I was thinking if I could just strip it from a track.

Any more thoughts?

Thanks for everyone's help so far!

Joe Howard

Yeah, it is tube noise but I find it overwhelming on my recordings. I do not want to switch to solid state amps for a few different reasons.

There are tons of "clean" recordings using tube amps so there has to be a good solution out there.

Thanks again for your help.

Joe

Like this nice dandy from Fender

http://www.fender.com/products//search.php?partno=2277000000

Right, there is nothing wrong with solid state but it is just not what I am after. I do prefer the weight of them compared to tube amps!

Joe

GMGM,

Both amps have the same hiss... I do have spare tubes and have swapped ALL of them for both amps. It is just the nature of tube amps.... the hiss that is.

I was just hoping that I could sample the hiss, invert it somehow to remove it.

The hiss is loud enough to drive me crazy. In fact, it is so prominant during finger style that it renders the tracks useless. I should be able to play as loud or as quiet as I want but I can't because the system seems to amplify the hiss.

Joe