Recording Hiss

[droog]

I noticed everything I record have that recording hiss in the background, most of the time it doesn’t bother me because it’s inaudible and lost in the rest of the sound. The problem is I have a quiet moment in a song now and…well, it’s audible and it’s bothering me.

I’m thinking the problem might be with the Behringer mixer I got, the cheapest I could find, I connect it to my crappy integrated soundcard with an RCA and just record with Renoise or sometimes Audacity.

Any fancy homestudio magic tricks I can do to prevent the hiss or somehow reduce it?

could it be an impedance issue

[meow]

However, in the U.S it risks making you dinner. 110v is no joke, and the 230v that you run overseas cannot be any more fun. Unless you are in to that sort pain.

I’m involved with the shows out here in Arizona and I’ve noticed some of the other artists out here use the 3 prong -> 2 prong converter (removing ground). It does remove a good portion of the hum. I used to use it too, until I got an audio interface. Definitely the better route to go. But I never got fried, zapped, tickled, etc.

Besides, what’s wrong with a little pain with pleasure?

[BotB]

110v is no joke, and the 230v that you run overseas cannot be any more fun. Unless you are in to that sort pain.

Ah, that reminds me of the time a friend from the States fried his Kaos Pad 3 at my place… Good times…

[qwanta]

I used to live in a building with bad electrical wiring which produced ground loops and humming on my audio. I fixed the problem with this:

[woden.357]

I’m involved with the shows out here in Arizona and I’ve noticed some of the other artists out here use the 3 prong -> 2 prong converter (removing ground). It does remove a good portion of the hum. I used to use it too, until I got an audio interface. Definitely the better route to go. But I never got fried, zapped, tickled, etc.

Besides, what’s wrong with a little pain with pleasure?

I’ve heard/read stories from both sides of the “to ground or not to ground issue”. I just would think it uncool if somebody got hurt with out the pleasure that’s all.

I guess my point was, there could be something wrong with the equipment and removing the ground might be dangerous.

Now, if somebody was standing there recording the sound of the zap, that would make a wickked sample