Too much fret noises

[Ludia]

Hi all,

I have recorded several tracks with classical guitar. The guy who played it for me plays very good but sometimes I have too much fret noises. A little fret noise now and then is pretty fine but it's slightly over the top. I will ask him to play the tracks again when new recording session are taking place but I'm not sure he is able to play it with less fret noise. So my question is fairly simple....what is the best approach to filter them down without loosing the sound of the guitar itself ?

The recordings are done on 48Khz 24 bit

Thx in advance for any insight

[SeedGuy]

Why not just automate them down a few db's?

[sw rec]

Are you miking the guitar REAL close? Maybe some more distance between the instrument and the mics will minimize the fret noise. Which of course means re-record it, but I can't think of an unobtrusive way to minimize it on an already-recorded track anyway. Try micing AND a direct, assuming the guitar has a pickup in it. Then you have a direct track and a mic'ed track to play with.

"Why not just automate them down a few db's? "

'Cuz you're probably gonna "automate down" the actual note at the same time.

[Ludia]

Originally Posted by sw rec

Are you miking the guitar REAL close? Maybe some more distance between the instrument and the mics will minimize the fret noise. Which of course means re-record it, but I can't think of an unobtrusive way to minimize it on an already-recorded track anyway. Try micing AND a direct, assuming the guitar has a pickup in it. Then you have a direct track and a mic'ed track to play with.

"Why not just automate them down a few db's? "

'Cuz you're probably gonna "automate down" the actual note at the same time.

Indeed when I automate down a few db's I'm loosing the notes too much.
Also it's true I miked the guitar pretty close. The reason I actually did that is due to the mike itself. When I record it from more distance the signal is getting pretty low into my ProjectMix IO and gaining the pre-amp is causing a low hum when amping all out. The mike used is a Sennheiser Black Fire 530. I got another one eVolution 845, I might give that one a shot. The guy himself was planning to build a pickup on it, so once he's done that, can try a direct recoding as well. I think in anyway it's going to take me another recording session or two. EQing or anything on the existing track is going to be too hard and never with wanting results I guess.

[lwilliam]

Some suggestions:

1. Use a better/different mic - try a condenser instead of a dynamic; they have higher output mostly, so you can mic from one or two feet away no problem
2. Mic from farther away with your current mic(s)
3. Move the mic around to minimize the string noise; changing the mic position can make a huge difference (point more towards sound hole instead of fingerboard, for instance)
4. Try a de-esser on the track to reduce the string noise; sometimes that works better than automation. You can also automate the de-esser.

[schuyler_c]

As everyone has said, the mic technique and playing technique are most important. The best solution is to get it right going in rather than try to fix it in the box.

That said, I have had moderate success using a de-esser to minimize fret noise and string squeaks. It won't eliminate them, but can make them far less noticeable. I'm a big fan of Massey's De:Esser because it has more options than the others and works better for non-vocal tracks, though the Digirack and Waves DeEssers are good too.

[albee1952]

+1 for trying a de-esser. Or add an EQ plugin, find the squeak frequency and automate the eq gain to pull down at the appropriate times. This will work better than automating the track level.

[Ludia]

Thanks all for the different advices and approaches I can try.

Was planning already to get me a nice condenser mike. I'm going to try never the less some of the stuff you all wrote. When I have my results as I want them I will come back to this thread and post the things I did. When I'm finnished with the song in all, I will post it somewhere and place a link to it. Would love to get some feedback and suggestions for future projects.

Thx all, Luc.

[Sven62]

A nice condenser mic is going to accentuate the fret noise even more.

There are a few good techniques that do not point the mic at the strings - this is the first step if you have fret noise. Point the mic somewhere else.

A couple great places....

Point it about half way between the bridge and the end of he body and down about 3 inches from the center line.

Another is to point it a little lower so it's pointing at the edge where the face joins the side of the guitar.

Another is to point it down over the guitarist's shoulder - right beside his/her ear. The theory being the guitarist likes the sound of the guitar so picking up what they are hearing is a good thing.

Maybe use an SM-57 or something a little more forgiving like that.

Hope this helps.

Enjoy!

[miek07]

Need to take out FRET noise?

Heres what you need to do...

Send your Guitar Track(s) to a new Bus, Im going to call it GuitarBUS

Have your Guitar Track(s) send at 0.0dB to GUITAR BUS

Inset TWO 1band eqs on GUITAR BUS

On 1bandeq(1), set gain to -0.0 and Invert the channel(s)

Playback and adjust GuitarBUS to 0.0 (

- At this point your Guitar Track(s) should be inaudible because of phase cancellation. -

On 1bandeq(2), set gain to -0.0 select BAND PASS FILTER Raise the gain of your 1band BPF to 6Db or so and keep it there...

-by now you should ONLY be hearing the frequency around the Filter Freq.-

Sweep the Freq until the FRET NOISE Sticks Out and adjust Q accordingly so that the most Fret noise is captured, while preserving other guitar Body and Harmonic (takes a little balance work here).

You have successfully captured isolated fret the most noise the 1bandeq bpfFilter.

Now there are Two options to take here

Option A:
Reduce your 1bandeq2 gain to -6.0db (or the SAME inverted value as your BPF gain) and you should hear your Guitar Track with ONLY the isolated signal inverted in relevance to the original track.

Option A2: Deinvertize the the GuitarBUS after finding your Fret Noise range and lower it to taste (not recomended)

Option B) Sidechaining the fret signal in a Compressor with conservative settings(reccomended)
Open the Compressor Plug in on your guitar track(s) and sidechain input the Isolated Fret signal from GuitarBUS. Using one of the Aucoustic guitar presets should be a good starter. Doing so will successfully and 'transparantly' notch out fret noise durring fretty sections, while preserving natural feel.

Option C) most effective but most cumbersome
Highlight about 150-300ms of the 'Fretty section' and capture that section into a spectrum anazizer and capture or copy that information into a spectral filter at 4096 or 8192 points.

Repeat the process for the good sounding parts to give you an idea of its 'slope'

Adjust the spectral filter so that the body (good sounding) frequency slopes are unaffected and overwrite the fretty section spectral filter into your guitar track(s) This will still preserve your signal while greatly attinuating or eliminating your fretty noise.


edit: If you take option B to sidechain- be sure to increase the 1band eq GAIN into the sidechain input



michae
www.myspace.com/miekwavesoundlab