Loud hiss in tracks that are exported
 

Greetings all,

I am working with a friend on a song and am still learning how to use Pro Tools.

He has a really nice piano plugin and so we are doing piano on his Mac and I have the fun mixing tools.

We tracked a MIDI piano on his computer and run that into his VI. We exported that and then I import that WAV file and there is a loud hiss in it.

Anyone know what may be causing it? It doesn't do that on his Mac.

Thank you all.

Re: Lous hiss in tracks that are exported
 

The most likely issue is just low quality or badly set up monitoring on your system.

This hiss is either in the file or not. If it is you should hear it when played back on the originating system. Did you reload the exported WAV back into Pro Tools on you friend's system and listen to it? If not noise there it is in your playback system.

Do you hear the hiss when you stop playback? Be careful, some hardware may mute when there is no signal so you actually have hiss there but only hear it when playing back signal.

What exactly is your monitoring setup/audio path? What interface (the 2i2?), additional monitor controllers if any, what amps, powered monitors etc.

Have you played with gain staging (e.g. on interface output and active monitor levels) to get the best sound/minimize hiss. Have you calibrated the monitor levels? What SPL level you are trying to run at... is this loud rock music etc?

What happens when you try to use headphones? What exact model headphones? Connected where?

Not that it really matters, but if you are both working on Mac why not export as AIFF? Hopefully you are also exporting at the bit depth and sample that sessions all use (no reasons nowadays not to use 32-bit float). My sessions on a Mac would use AIFF 32-bit float audio files, and I've be exporting/importing as that as well.

Re: Lous hiss in tracks that are exported
 

Just wondering if he's also doing 24-bit in ProTools but not dithering to 16 when exporting to MP3? I've seen that happen before.

Re: Lous hiss in tracks that are exported
 

The op is working with a wav file and nothing was mentioned about mp3.

Re: Lous hiss in tracks that are exported
 

oops my bad, I meant WAV, edited post.

Re: Lous hiss in tracks that are exported
 

In addition to what else was asked here are there any plugins on the track? Specifically Waves plugins that have a so-called 'analog' control that adds noise to the signal. Also the channel strips put out by Plugin Alliance have a control that allows one to add noise to a signal.

Reverb on the track?
Any kind of plugin that hypes the high end?

Re: Lous hiss in tracks that are exported
 

Yes the Waves etc plugins were my first thought as well. Because nothing says "analogue" quite like digitally created hiss all over your mix. :rolleyes:

Re: Lous hiss in tracks that are exported
 

LOL Agree 100% with this!

Those Waves plugins with those ”analog” buttons are pure and utter Crapola!

Re: Lous hiss in tracks that are exported
 

Yea, but you get to choose between 50Hz and 60Hz crap :cool:

Re: Lous hiss in tracks that are exported
 

Useless!