Interference Issue

It's not unique to monitors so yeah, you can get it on the recording. Putting cell phones in airplane mode is a good idea while tracking. Or just switch them off altogether.

That is weird.  You didn't hear the static was monitoring the recording? I have an issue with my MONITOR/Display causing COMPUTER sounds (glitches, hard drive whirls, etc.) over my monitors but not in the recording signal.
 
I have isolated the problem to a MACKIE outboard small mixer that I like to use to manage my monitoring.  But, the sounds do NOT get recorded as part of any live track recordings.
 
Sorry, I couldn't help you directly but the next time you hear some sounds, I suggest you try and isolate the culprit of the noise and then look for a specific solution.
 
Jim

Hey guys.
 
No, the interference wasn't audible at all while we were tracking. I only noticed it after the fact when I was playing back the audio.
 
It isn't a constant buzzing.  It's an intermittent, "pitched static" type sound.  In the past, whenever I've heard it, it's when my cell phone was sitting on the desk, so I'm assuming that's what's causing it. But because my phone wasn't in the room and my mic picked up the interference but my buddy's didn't (and he had his phone in his pocket) I'm wondering if it's something else.
 
I DID recently swap out my old mouse for a wireless one...could THAT be causing it?

Yeah, good call.  I'll upload a sample to YouTube after work today and provide the link.
 
I was monitoring through headphones connected to my interface, so it's really strange that I didn't hear it while monitoring.  Both mics plugged into the interface, direct monitoring from the interface.
 
Of course, I suppose it's entirely feasible that the oddity was present while we were tracking and I just didn't notice it because I was focused on the podcast conversation instead...one disadvantage of being engineer and performer at the same time. :)
 
But in either case, I've only noticed it before through my monitors when my cell phone was in close proximity. This is the first time the interference was actually recorded.

Is it possible the XLR cable has been damaged so that it is no longer balanced? What I find most odd from your description is that the direct monitor didn't catch it. That almost implies the interference was created in the interface->PC cable, or possibly in the PC itself.

Another thing to try would be check an input echo from SONAR back out to the headphones.

jimkleban
I have never used this but I think there is an audio tool that let's you sample noise and then based upon the sampled noise, eliminates it from a targeted track.  (I might have dreamt this but somewhere in the way back machine I might have stumbled upon this).
 
Jim
 
PS - it might have been a noise reduction tool in Soundforge but not sure

This exists in some audio suites included in video editors (Adobe is one).  It also exists in RX5.

As we're now on the subject of noise reduction.  I've had pretty good success with Reafir.  It's free from Cockos.  It has a FFT noise reduction mode that works really well when you can sample the noise floor from your clip.
 
Here's the web page that describes it:  http://wiki.cockos.com/wiki/index.php/ReaFIR.  See the "Subtraction" section for a description of how I use it to reduce noise.
 
Maybe this will be of use to you,
Paul

Oh, also...
 
There's a PG-13 word in the audio snippet so listener discretion is advised.

When tracking vocals I'll typically monitor through SONAR so I can get a little reverb in the headphones, but I monitored directly through the interface when we recorded the podcast.
 
I'm using a Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 firewire interface. Rode NT1-A (my mic) into the interface with a balanced XLR, AT2035 (his mic) into the interface with a balanced XLR. Yamaha HS8 monitors connected to the interface outs with balanced TRS-XLR cables. I've also got an Avid Eleven Rack connected to the interface via SPDIF. Sony MDR 7506 headphones for each of us. My channel was what recorded the interference.
 
I've never run into this before (cell phone has caused interference with the monitors before, but I've never had it recorded before), and only two things have changed recently: new monitors (upgraded Alesis M1 Active MKII to Yamaha HS8 monitors) and a wireless mouse. 
 
What's strange is that we recorded two podcasts that evening, pretty much back-to-back.  The first one picked up the interference.  We stepped out and came back after about five minutes, the next podcast recorded clean.  Our positioning changed a little bit since we moved mic stands out of the way to get up, etc. but the actual setup/monitoring remained the same.
 
All I can think is that maybe his phone was going nuts during that first session and our positioning was a perfect storm to pick up the interference, but again, it's strange that my mic/channel is what picked up the cell phone interference and not his.
 
Baffled.

That's what's got me confused. I've heard that sound several times before through my monitors, long before I got my wireless mouse, and before I got the NT1-A. Each and every time, moving the cell phone away from my work area fixed the problem.
 
But since I'd never recorded the interference before, and the wireless mouse is the newest element of my studio, I thought maybe it might've contributed to it.
 
Thanks for the link, I'll check it out.