BR1GHT PR1MATE
Offline
BOSTON

Usually the hum isnt that big of a big deal for me. Post recording I just do a high Q sweep with a tight notch eq to find where exactly the hum is (usually somewhere between 8khz-9.7khz), then kill it. BUT the past few days I have a few tracks being recorded where Im using quieter LSDJ instruments for effect, and since the resulting noise floor is lower the hum is way more apparent and it seems to be requiring a wider and wider notch to deal with the hum, which is then affecting the over-all sound...

So, any good ways to deal with this? I want to try a few different things, so what do you guys that care about this stuff do? (I know a few of you do... not everybody though, I hear so much buzz on even "produced" albums tongue) Does anybody have a more specific range of frequencies to chop for the nyquist thing?

roboctopus
Offline
Madison, Alabama

Victory Road says it's specifically 9.25kzh.  I've just been doing a notch filter on that frequency and it seems to work for me too.  There's still some background noise, of course, but that should kill the whine.

EvilWezil
Offline
Los Angeles, CA

NOISE GATE y'all. You're right on the money with your Tight Q notch filtering for the really bad frequencies, but then AFTER that, GATE that shit!!!
The quietest sound that the gameboy is capable of producing is still pretty loud by relative terms. So, find the quietest sound in your song and set the gate threshold just beneath that volume, and set the attack and release for as close to zero as possible. So, if it ever drops beneath that point, the gate kills the lonely noise floor. Like you say, the noise floor only becomes apparent in the quieter, emptier sections, so I find this helps clean that up substantially.
(This won't be that noticeable or seem that important until you push the whole thing through compression and limiting at the end. I've found the limiting tends bring up all those quiet sections, and that's when you really start to notice the noise floor in those empty bits.)
Remember to gate after the notch filtering, though. Sometimes you can hear the noise come and then disappear with the notes if you don't notch those specific hums out enough. Hope that helps!

BR1GHT PR1MATE
Offline
BOSTON

ah, good advice dudes! ive used a noise gate before, but never AFTER the notch eq for some reason... so ill do that and focus in on 9.23k and see if thats any better than just doing it by ear

The Silph Scope
Offline
Riverside, CA

Sometimes, after getting too frustrated of trying to remove the hum, I'll just breakdown and record from an emulator. BGB's sound is usually very, very difficult to tell apart from the real thing.

Wizwars
Offline
Los Angeles, CA

I use a GBC. I just embrace the whine and the hum. Livin' on the edge.
But in all seriousness, I actually like a little bit of hum in GB recordings. In some cases, because as listed above, BGB is pretty damn accurate, the hum is the only way I can tell something was recorded from hardware. And it's like vinyl crackle or the bit of noise you'll get from recording something on analog equipment, it's just nice. If it's distracting that's one thing, but, especially if using a prosound mod on a DMG, it should never be THAT bad. EMBRACE THE HUM!

Last edited by Wizwars (Apr 13, 2012 10:45 pm)

an0va
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I'm no chip-purist goofball, but getting rid of hum on the gameboy is seriously like wanting to get rid of fret noise on an acoustic guitar IMO!

an0va
Offline

EMBRACE IT JAMES-SAN

an0va
Offline
roboctopus wrote:

Victory Road says it's specifically 9.25kzh.  I've just been doing a notch filter on that frequency and it seems to work for me too.  There's still some background noise, of course, but that should kill the whine.

This is still really interesting to note, though.

roboctopus
Offline
Madison, Alabama
Wizwars wrote:

I use a GBC. I just embrace the whine and the hum. Livin' on the edge.
But in all seriousness, I actually like a little bit of hum in GB recordings. In some cases, because as listed above, BGB is pretty damn accurate, the hum is the only way I can tell something was recorded from hardware. And it's like vinyl crackle or the bit of noise you'll get from recording something on analog equipment, it's just nice. If it's distracting that's one thing, but, especially if using a prosound mod on a DMG, it should never be THAT bad. EMBRACE THE HUM!


Totally agree.  I write on BGB all the time, but I put it on the DMG to record, because I like that little bit of noise.  BUT I do notch that high whine @ 9.25khz.  You still have the noise, but it kills that little high frequency that's sometimes noticeable.

But yeah, that DMG noise floor is like character.

Victory Road
Offline
Gosford, Australia

might sound obvious, but cranking the gameboy output so you're running really hot into the preamp will increase the discrepancy between noise floor and E10

and yeah, 9.25K seems to be the ticket, roughly! i imagine under/overclocking would change it, though.

boomlinde
Offline
Sweden

To get rid of sound over the nyquist frequency, you have to filter as much as possible above half of the sample rate out before it's digitized. Most soundcards do this, though, so I don't think that any problem you might have relates to frequency folding.

dasid
Offline
Los Angeles

i only get an unbearable "whine"  when I sync more then one gb running nanoloop (both gba and gb/gbc). I can currently squash it when I match each gb's mixer channel signal perfectly on my mackie 1202 (cancels it out i guess) BUT if i add effects or volume changes to one channel, then the signals dont not match and the whine rears its ugly head.

so do i understand correctly that this hum does not occur when syncing more then one gb running lsdj? (i only have one cart so i cant test)

Victory Road
Offline
Gosford, Australia

the "9.25K" ringing plays through pretty much everything in the DMG, including the boot-up routine. maybe you're experiencing something different?

Last edited by Victory Road (Apr 15, 2012 12:28 pm)

breakphase
Offline
Earth
daSID wrote:

i only get an unbearable "whine"  when I sync more then one gb running nanoloop (both gba and gb/gbc). I can currently squash it when I match each gb's mixer channel signal perfectly on my mackie 1202 (cancels it out i guess) BUT if i add effects or volume changes to one channel, then the signals dont not match and the whine rears its ugly head.

so do i understand correctly that this hum does not occur when syncing more then one gb running lsdj? (i only have one cart so i cant test)

No I get that super-whine when syncing nanoloop w lsdj. It's an electrical problem more than likely.

edit: Oh u meant two lsdjs. I dunno.

Last edited by breakphase (Apr 15, 2012 7:26 pm)

Zombipnok
Offline
Montréal

I use Izotope RX, quite efficient to remove any hum/buzz/background noise.