One of the most common questions posed by beginning and intermediate recordists is "How do I get rid of background noise in my recording?" It's all too easy for 60-cycle hum, air conditioner drone, mic cable crackle, traffic noise, and many other ugly artifacts of modern life to sneak into our pure audio signals.

Your first impulse might be to bash at the problem with technology: almost every digital recording program, from the high-end Pro Tools to the free (yet robust) Audacity, has some method for reducing noise. (I use and swear by Sony Sound Forge.) O'Reilly covered several high-tech approaches in the article "Seven Steps to Noise-Free Digital Audio."

But my answer to the "How do I get rid of noise" question is different: "Don't have any background noise in your recording."

That sounds snippy, but it isn't really. It's a lot easier to do a little planning and have no noticeable noise in your signal than it is to get rid of noise later. I never use any "fix it in the mix" audio filtering. I don't like noise-reduced audio; it all kinda sounds like robots whispering in the background to me. Noise-fixed audio will never sound as good as audio that had no noise to begin with.

That said, having no noticeable noise in a recording wasn't always possible. Analog tape, tube amplifiers, mixers, and vinyl all added noise. Beatles and Led Zeppelin records, often cited (and rightly so) as pinnacles of analog recording, all have some noise that anyone with decent ears can hear on headphones.

Today, the average kid with an off-the-shelf laptop, a relatively inexpensive mic, and a USB audio interface has the potential for a sonic purity that George Martin and Jimmy Page never had back in the day. But how come Zeppelin discs and the Beatles still sound way better than what the kid with the laptop does? Well, partly because it was Zeppelin and the Beatles being recorded, and partly because George Martin and Jimmy Page were at the controls. And partly because they were using amazing "don't make 'em like they used to" Neumann microphones, and recording in some of the most sonically perfect rooms in the world.

Is That a $7,000 Mic in Your Pocket?

The O'Reilly Digital Media site is generally aimed at mid-level users, but I think it's germane to show the top of the curve as well. I'm mainly going to cover recording with $100–$250 microphones in this two-part article. But the techniques apply even if you're using cheaper mics, or much more expensive ones.

As for the top of the curve: My friend Dave Bock engineered "To Elvis in Hell" (free download here), the first record by my band Bomb in 1986. Dave has gone on to perfect microphones that work much like the original Neumanns and AKGs.

Dave's mics are pricey — $1,000–7,000 — but many high-end engineers and producers swear that Bock microphones sound as good as the old German tube mics, which range from $5,000–$20,000, if you can even find someone willing to part with one. It's hard to find a good-condition antique Neumann or AKG for sale; they're like classic cars. People who can afford them have bought up the few that exist and won't let them go.

Dave Bock being interviewed in his home by me, on one of his own microphones. (Click to enlarge.)

Here's a podcast (60MB MP3) of me interviewing Dave Bock through his mics, as syndicated by GearSlutz.com, the high-end audio forum. The recording sounds amazing and creamy, even though I was running into a cheap mixer, with a cheap preamp, in a room with a lot of reflective surfaces, not a recording studio.

My portable setup. Note Zoom H2 on the table — and why not? If my computer crashed later, I'd still have the interview, albeit not through Bock mics. (Click to enlarge.)

So, there's the top of the curve. As for the bottom, I've used a Sennheiser E822S. It was on sale for $30 from MusiciansFriend.com, but I didn't buy it. They sent it free when I ordered something else. I gave it to my cat to bat around for a while; then took it into a locked room and did awful, horrible things with the mic, which I can't go into here; and then threw it away.

Fuzzbucket McFluffernutter sniffing a Sennheiser E822S with suspicion. Even my cat can tell when something's crap.

Neumann used to make the best mics in the world, but then the kids of the owner sold the company to Sennheiser. Sennheiser now makes mics called "Neumann," and they look like the originals, but don't let that fool you. As one guy on GearSlutz.com forum has in his sig line, "The Neumann family should have left the shovel in the garage."

If you must cheap out, spend 69 bucks for an MXL V63. They sound a lot better than the Sennheiser.