want to get rid of white noise

I record on a 4 track and whats the best way to remove white noise, I tried audacity's noise filter but that leaves nasty digital glitchy sound behind

It can be really, really hard, depending on the tape.

First thing first, record at the highest possible tape speed. This is the most effective, I have found.

Gating is probably the most effective POST recording - you only let the noise through when there is a louder sound present, hoping the sound 'masks' the noise.

Digital noise-reduction can introduce that mp3/warbly artifact if used too aggressively.

If you are on a mac, there is a plugin called 'Airwindows Density2' (http://www.airwindows.com/) that sometimes works magic on tape hiss. It is by no means a golden solution, but it has helped me sometimes when nothing else will.

Having said all that, a 4-track recording on cassette is probably the noisiest source you can create right now, so just get used to it and accept it to an extent. For me, the benefits of tape-compression + overdrive outweigh the problems of noise inherit in the technique.

well I know it's possible because I dont hear any white noise on 36 chambers

It also depends on the Tape you are using (no old Tape that already is overdubbed 20 times. ), the recording level(gains set in order of the signal flow so the gain on the 4Track dont need to be turned up much) and of course the machine itself (clean?, demagnetized and adjusted heads? sure that the amp stages are ok?)

peace

as for the 36 chambers:

http://forums.undergroundhiphop.com/pri ... nID=817240

Nobody said it was impossible.

Also that link (very nice, peterpiper) kind of reinforces what I said...high speed tape + fat tape is one of the best ways to keep tape noise down.

I'm sure a lot of knowledge went into making that record sound good, so don't think you are going to find a one-size-fits-all solution (and you KNOW they weren't using audacity's noise reduction ;]). A combination of all the techniques mentioned so far will get you close. A bit of love for tape's limitations wouldn't hurt either.

ok that makes sense, I guess the kids will just be left wondering why only half the songs on my album are blasting with white noise and the other half sound crystal clear

problem solved, got an older more advanced 4 track and has far less noise, also has noise removal but it destroys the sound

Nice, what 4 track is it?

portastudio 464

If you track your different drums sounds seperately, digital gating really cleans it up, also it can sometimes destroy your transients and or cut off your tails too soon though

Sound Soap, X-Noise and many that are the same will remove white noise as they can create a noise profile by playing a couple of seconds of the tape noise and then negative imprint this and remove it.

If you are always going to have this problem then it makes sense to get a noise filter like the Drawmer DF 330 and have the outputs go to the tape.

i have been using izotope RX it has a feature called the `denoiser`

i`ve been using it to clean up soundclips from movies to use as samples,

basically you play it a bit of the `noise` your trying to remove and it isolates that frequency as much or as little as you want to remove it.

between that and a good eq you can pretty much sort out any hum or hiss.

but its like anything, use it sparingly or it can sound shite.

only thing i noticed is that it really hammers your computers processor!

but my comp isnt a flyer, its 2.8ghz but only 1G of ram, so i find it best to run as little else as possible when using RX.
it works on its own though so u dont need it in your DAW
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wtEyErZ1dQ

Zukan wrote:Sound Soap, X-Noise and many that are the same will remove white noise as they can create a noise profile by playing a couple of seconds of the tape noise and then negative imprint this and remove it.

If you are always going to have this problem then it makes sense to get a noise filter like the Drawmer DF 330 and have the outputs go to the tape.

i 100% co sign on X-Noise

use it all the time on samples with noise/white noise

it totally removes noise with minimum damage to the original sound

it's easy to use/control exactly how much noise you remove

and even has a spectral/visual analysis

it's a Waves pluggin so its not cheap (unless you get it from special places)

but it's the best way to remove noise i have found (and i have tryed many other ways)