What You Can Do About It

I don't think that writing your Congressperson is going to do much good. I also don't think that most of the manufacturers have much incentive for attending to the acoustical integrity of their devices. It would add significantly to their cost, while weakening their competitiveness in the non-audio portion of their market, which has to take priority for them. Digidesign and Studer, on the other hand, cannot be forgiven quite so easily. Audio is their business. I have the highest regard for the companies (including these two) who are really pushing the new technologies to their limits. Thanks to those creative and intelligent companies, we live in a time when it truly fun to be in audio. They invent new gizmos daily, many of which belong in everybody's fun/profit tool-kit. At the same time, this new digital gear is regularly criticized for its lack of "pro-audio" specifications, use of unbalanced -10 dBu line levels, sloppy/crude re-dithering, RCA jacks, and sometimes less than ideal audio grounding. Well, the fact is, you should add this to the list, probably at the top: the gear is so noisy, acoustically, that it has no place in a professional studio. Sadly, it seems to fall short of the semi-pro home studio standards as well. You'd think that Digidesign and Studer/Dyaxis would have some incentive in this regard, but they don't seem to. One can always hope for the future, however.

So, once again, you are on your own. Your solutions range from (a) not using computers in your studio (like, sure, right, dude!) to (b) trying to install all your noisy stuff in an isolated room or closet (the "machine-room" approach) to (c) adding noise reduction packaging to the individual pieces. But before you plunge off the noise-reduction cliff, measure your own noise floor and see where you are without the computers and drives on. You may have other problems to resolve first, or you may have a situation you just have to live with for now. No sense in silencing the computers if there's a high-velocity ventilator fan going all the time that masks everything anyway.

Solution (a) seems self-defeating, particularly in the long run. Solution (b) is a good idea, but the manufacturers have gummed this one up by designing their systems to only work in very constrained areas, so that the distance between pieces in a computer system (CPU, monitor, keyboard, memory disk drives) usually is limited to about 3 feet. A successful machine-room closet would probably need about 20 feet minimum.

So, Solution (c) is probably your best bet. Problems here include thermal problems and the general constraints imposed by the available cabling and connectors, which are really klutzy and unfriendly. However, I did manage to fit my La Cie Drive, Powerbook and the MDS drive into a cardboard box filled with foam extrusions plus some venting for cool air, and it gave me about 12 dB improvement without any thermal failures (keeping in mind that this was in New England during the Fall & Winter). This is definitely quick 'n dirty and not recommended for a professional appearance.

Better to go to a more elaborately designed and engineered baffle-box made out of something substantial like 3/4" particle board, with AC plug strips 'n power switches and forced-air cooling through a foam-baffled cold air pick-up/warm air exhaust under the box. Your big problems will be with dopey issues like cable lengths (go ahead, try to buy a 15' ADB cable to run from a Mac in a box on the floor behind your rack to a keyboard by the console) and the inconvenience of inserting floppy discs when you need to, etc. You will need to get some closed-cell foam to rest the pieces on or in, to protect them and decouple them from the box and each other. And you will need to fiddle with all of this until you can get it to work for you with a modicum of convenience. One novel version of this might be a simple DC food cooler, if you can figure out a way to get the cabling in and out, resolve condensation issues and find an alternative home for the beer.

How much good can you do this way? You can fairly easily reduce the noise of the drives and CPUs by 10 dB. If you are diligent and fussy, you might get them down by 20 dB, by which point you will probably need to start worrying about cars driving by, air-turbulence in the A/C ducts, leakage from the deli two doors down, etc.

There is also a Solution (d): mix with headphones. I sense that the manufacturers expect you to do this. It is, however is fraught with psychoacoustical, comfort and applications problems that may introduce more trouble than the Solution is worth. However, in some particular situations, it may be worth considering.

Me? Part of my studio plan was to build some custom desks to hold the console, racks 'n synths. Well, I figured if I included some enclosed bays, I could isolate the computers and drives, put the monitors on swivels and run the keyboards to a shelf below the console. I just installed the desk and it looks great and works well, except I still have significant noise leakage, both via air and the wood itself.

I'm still 9 dB above the noise floor of the room. Also, there are some Low Frequency resonances being transmitted by the desk itself. Work remains to be done. I'll keep you posted . . .

One other thing. Manufacturers are sensitive to prospective clients who won't buy the equipment if it doesn't do what they want. If enough of us moan 'n groan about excellent acoustic noise performance, we may actually see an improvement here. Maybe I should take the Ivie RTA to trade shows. Hmmmm.

Why bother with all of this? Because if you can't hear what you're mixing while you're mixing it, it becomes unreasonably difficult to get a really good mix. Making good music is plenty hard enough under the best of circumstances. Stuffing cotton in your ears, literally or figuratively, makes it far worse!

Happy baffles!

continued...
Dave Moulton is trying to figure out the difference between noise and sound. Alex Case wonders if there is sound when Dave isn't there and Peter Alhadeff is exploring the noises made by his guitar. They all live and work in Massachusetts, a fine place not too far from Iceland.