High Noise floor vs Ola Englund's DI tracks

Hello, I've noticed people on youtube and here can get some pretty damn sweet, clear distorted tones. Today after messing around with tones I downloaded Ola Englund's DI tracks to see what a proper DI should sound like. Very crisp sounding btw. Have never been able to get that clear of a DI sound. dont know why. I tried recording on 3 different settings (Creative sound card, Delta, and Fast track) without actually playing to see the noise floor. After comparing Ola's track to mine I noticed even when the pre amp levels are 0 there is noise that is at least 4 or 5 times louder than Ola's track.. Here is an image of it Top is OLAs Bottom is my recording of the white noise. I tried it on my laptop with the electricity disconnected and the noise is still there. I can never get a crystal clear recording. Is it a windows problem? Is it just noisy software by nature? Is mac the quiter option? Or do i have to adjust the settings properly. I don't know where it's coming from!!! Can anyone please help an amateur out ? BTW im using Sonar X1d, Windows 7 64 bit, with an M audio Delta and fast track interface. Thank you in advance

No, its definitely not a windows problem. Those sound cards you have, especially the creative one are not the greatest. you will need to move up into the RME, MOTU, Lynx and Focusrite cards.

You also may need a power conditioner for your outboard equipment (sound cards and anything else) if your house is somewhat old. It may even be a ground issue. you may have to consult an electrician to see if your houses electric is on the up and up

Cj

Ola uses a Presonus USB interface, can't remember which one exactly but he lists it on his video descriptions, for most of his videos although I have noticed that some of time he uses an Apogee One.
 
I think there may be a number of things going on that you should investigate. Could be your power, self noise of the preamp, converter, pickups, cabling picking up or adding noise.

Ola seems like he's a nice guy and frequently responds to comments on his videos. I know he has his own website as well. It may be worth it for you to contact him and see if he will give you any clues as to what his signal chain is and if he has done anything specific to eliminate noise.
 
 
EDIT:
This is his typical signal chain from what I've seen - S7G Solar7 w. Seymour Duncan Distortions - AMP of choice - Cab of choice - SM57 - Presonus Audiobox 22vSL
I have not seen a reference to how he splits his signal for D.I. though.

bz2838


go with the RME, you get what you pay for

Not necessarily. There is always the case of diminishing returns. There have been tests posted recently showing that the RME UFX converters are not faithful to what is actually going into the box and ranks almost dead last in the converters that had been tested. That thread is posted somewhere on Gearslutz.
 
Short of coming to the conclusion that there is something that is wrong with Delta or Fast Track I don't see any reason why you should go out and spend a bunch of money on a device that won't make a noticable difference unless you have your engineering and mixing skills already nailed down really well. Besides there are many other things you can switch out that will be much cheaper to start off with.
 
Worst case scenario - Call a local studio owner/engineer that knows their stuff and explain your situation and ask if you can pay for a hour or two of their service to help diagnose your problem. If the problem is solved quickly enough you can always pull up a mix and have them sit down with you and go over how they would approach mixing or production aspects. It may open you eyes to knew things that you had not previously considered.
 
 

I believe arguments about that have pretty much been squashed other than by a couple individuals that don't understand that the test is measuring the transparency of loopback compared to the original source and not the personal opinion of sound quality, which we are all certainly entitled to. The test is unbiased and anyone can perform it on their own system if they so choose.

Granted I didn't read through all 75 or so pages of that thread but I would think the MOTU mkII guys would have been popping up everywhere complaining they weren't getting anywhere near the same results. Also you should note the not all MOTU devices scored equally. I believe the 828 mkIII was a fair distance below the mkII. That being said I still wouldn't buy a mkII for the converter transparency because the clock stability has always been an issue with all but a select few units. I've had personal experience with this.

It is also worth noting that only the Lynx Hilo scored what I would consider high. The Aurora actually came around the middle of the pack. I've heard the Aurora and Apogee 16x side by side and they sound nothing alike. I'd be curious to test a Hilo next to a 16x to see if how much more similar they sound.

Ultimately what I took away from that thread is that while your converters do matter it matters much more how you are able to work around their imperfections or character so that the end result sounds the way you want it to. If money isn't an issue and your engineering and mixing skills are at a level that the typically large investment of buying new converters is going to be offset by giving you the advantage of better or faster mixes then maybe it's worth it. Until that time any off the shelf interface with stock converters should be plenty quiet enough. Let's not get to far of track from what the OP problem is though.

You'll see that I posted the interfaces that Ola uses. Not top of the line by any means. The Presonus gear has instrument level S/N ratio 89db and yet Ola is able to make clean sounding DI tracks from it. I'm not sure what the Fast Track S/N ratio is but I had a friend who was using one before he moved away and we never had any problem with noise from anything other than the preamp when turned up loud. Not all gear is created equal however so I think OP should definitely investigate that as a possible source of noise but it seems a bit silly to jump to the conclusion that a new interface is what he needs without ruling out all other possibilities first. I find it to be irresponsible guidance that is typical of a big box guitar shop. Customer: " hey my guitar is humming. How do I fix this" GC employee: "Well, it could be that you are using the wrong picks. We just got these gold pated vinyl ones in and everyone is raving about how it makes them play cleaner. That will probably take care of your problem."

Just thought of this. The Fast Track has wall wart style plug right? See if you have anything else around the house that matches the power and try to swap them out for a minute. I remember having a problem long long ago with a pedal board that had a sort of constant buzz with a low level hiss. We switched out the wall wart and poof! Problem solved.