Mixing, EQing,....hissing in final mix....

I have a problem...I notice in my beat when the instruments change (ie: a piano comes in or leaves) I notice a little hiss when it comes in, and a hiss when it leaves. I have Cubase SL and I am no expert on tracking and mixing. How I've been placing my tracks is after I track it and chop it to a perfect 4 bar loop, from there I duplicate it and move it around. I need to know how to get rid of these hisses...I thought it may just be in Cubase and after the final mixdown to a WAV fileit would be gone, but even in the wav I hear the hiss....any help would be much appreciated. Thanks alot.

Are the sounds comin off the mpc into Cubase or from Cubase into the mpc?

These are sample based instruments right?If so,i think if they're from the mpc you should trim a little off the start and end.

Check your cables and peak.Also,check the sample comin' into the mpc to make sure it's hot but not peakin'.

The ones that I notice are all instruments which came from my synth rack...although sometimes it will happen when I change drum patterns. I usually mix at low volumes so I dont run into this problem...the cable I have is fairly new...any suggestions?

It's good for your ears and your mix that you mix at low volume mostly, but you've got to turn it up too....one reason is to help identify and fix the problem you are having. Turning it up will not affect the amount of hiss in your mix, just make it audible. It could be a cabling or gain issue for starters. Try adjusting the various gain stages in each piece of gear to find the settings that provide the best signal to noise ratio. If you mostly notice it on your synth module, try turning the modue up all the way and turn your gain on your mixer down a little. Typically, modules, MPC's, and keyboards function best with volume on the unit maxed...If the noise is in your sample, trimming the attack and ramping down the volume at the tail of your sample will help. The best bet whwn sampling of course, is to start with good source material.

Here's a link to the track I am talking about...I havent mixed it fully or arranged it yet with exception of the intro/outro...I've only tried fixing the problem I'm talking about...listen for when the piano comes in/out, the bass, and the organ....thanks for taking the time to listen...also if you'd like give some input, it is my first non-sample based song (all done on a keyboard and the MPC -(just for percussion))...peace.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VT85Z7B7

Here's a link to the soundclick so it's quicker...only it sounds alot more f*cked up on the soundclick page...please someone offer some advice...

http://www.soundclick.com/beatme914

sometimes I run across this problem. the sample you use probably just has more noise then the rest of the track. you gotta take care of that before you use the sample in your beat or else at the end, the problem will still be there. either cut some of the high end so you cant hear the hiss or use noise reduction on the sample.

do this BEFORE you use the sample in your beat and it should work out


oh...wait you said you noticed it was only coming from your synth rack? hmm...well maybe your cables are to blame? if the cables suck then your probably getting noise. and whatever noise that is there when your recording from your synths output is going to be in your recording.

but thats just my thoughts

Thanks for the reply, but everything was done with the synth rack and MPC, no samples...also, the one on soundclick sounds alot more messy/sloppy than the other ones (on my PC and on Megaupload.com) Basically there's like a click or a hiss when the piano/bass/organ come in/out. I can't figure it out.

maybe the click has something to do with chopping it to the perfect 4 bars. There could be some decay on the recording that you're clipping which is causing the click.
For the hiss, i think it could be the result of using a compressor/limiter when recording, which could be bringing up the lower volumes of the synth. If you're not using a compressor/limiter, perhaps there's an auto normalize happening when you record.
hope that helps.

Alright, I probably wont find an answer here, but thanks for trying. The weird thing is, all the hissing (I'm guessing it's all caused by the bass) that's on the song on my soundclick page isn't there in my I-Tunes or in Cubase...the only thing I hear in I-Tunes and Cubase is a slight click when certain instruments come in and out of the mix. Anyway thanks alot...was the track any good? I have never made a non sampled beat before. Peace.

If you want to eradicate the clicks make the samples slightly longer and draw in envelope curves so the attack slowly fades in. I had to do this when chopping up a vocal take where the singer was dramatically changing his volume all over the place! Sometimes compression's just not enough!

I dont really mess with compression or anything, but like I said, there were NO samples used in the beat, strictly keyboard and MPC for drum programming. Thanks anyway.

Check the volumes and cables again.The hiss is either from interference or you're peaking too much.

Hmmm... Soz just being stupid about the samples thing.
Make sure your power cables don't cross your audio cables but if they have to make sure they cross at right angles to minimise any noise picked up. Oh and bundle you power cables and audio cables (seperately), makes a real difference in tidyness and organisation