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https://poal.co/s/AskPoal/712368

My recording attempts so far have yielded mixed results. Been visualizing the live spectrum with my phone and Spectroid. Seems to work some of the time but other times it won't.

When I get this https://pic8.co/sh/03mMMf.png , I think it's something to do with the electric grid because there's a clear peak at 50 Hz and the first harmonic. (Yurop uses 50 Hz)

But other days I get this https://pic8.co/sh/DyTi89.png

Today I recorded the spectrum of the appx. 70 Hz signal and I thought I had finally found the best settings in Spectroid. I thought I had won and at least found good settings to visualize. Then I tried again and... hardly any signal.

Things I have tried: Bought an USB to XLR Adapter for the one mike I own (Shure Beta 58A) This combo technically works but the noise floor is atrocious. For the level I'm looking at it might as well be "noise to signal".

I've set my mind to find better recording equipment. (And set up a web site and advertise it on a local billboard but I need good data for that)

Condenser instead of dynamic: https://www.thomann.de/de/behringer_ecm_8000.htm

Now I need a recommendation for a good digital recorder. Zoom and Tascam seem to have good products.

They all seem to be capable of 32 bit recording https://www.thomann.de/de/portable_recorder.html and 96 kHz sampling, which theoretically should not matter for this low low frequency application.

Money is not the main issue, buy once, cry once. Reason why I'm asking is disappointments with "great" products in the past. Looking for a good product with few ragrets. A live spectrum would be a feature I'd love during recording but that'd be a luxury.

Oh, almost forgot... Today, at a customer's house I worked on something IT related. Every time things got silent, "Siehe Da!" I heard the hum. I asked the (older) couple and she heard it, he wasn't sure. They live 3-4 kilometers away from me. Three weeks ago, my step son and his girlfriend were over to visit. When we had breakfast, she asked about that strange noise. Last fall I went to the forest, trying to locate the sound or at least find differences in its level. I drove, then walked about 4 kilometers from where we live and still heard it. What I'm saying is, I don't think I'm imagining this. If I do, I indent to find out.

https://poal.co/s/AskPoal/712368 My recording attempts so far have yielded mixed results. Been visualizing the live spectrum with my phone and Spectroid. Seems to work some of the time but other times it won't. When I get this https://pic8.co/sh/03mMMf.png , I think it's something to do with the electric grid because there's a clear peak at 50 Hz and the first harmonic. (Yurop uses 50 Hz) But other days I get this https://pic8.co/sh/DyTi89.png Today I recorded the spectrum of the appx. 70 Hz signal and I thought I had finally found the best settings in Spectroid. I thought I had won and at least found good settings to visualize. Then I tried again and... hardly any signal. Things I have tried: Bought an USB to XLR Adapter for the one mike I own (Shure Beta 58A) This combo technically works but the noise floor is atrocious. For the level I'm looking at it might as well be "noise to signal". I've set my mind to find better recording equipment. (And set up a web site and advertise it on a local billboard but I need good data for that) Condenser instead of dynamic: https://www.thomann.de/de/behringer_ecm_8000.htm Now I need a recommendation for a good digital recorder. Zoom and Tascam seem to have good products. They all seem to be capable of 32 bit recording https://www.thomann.de/de/portable_recorder.html and 96 kHz sampling, which theoretically should not matter for this low low frequency application. Money is not the main issue, buy once, cry once. Reason why I'm asking is disappointments with "great" products in the past. Looking for a good product with few ragrets. A live spectrum would be a feature I'd love during recording but that'd be a luxury. Oh, almost forgot... Today, at a customer's house I worked on something IT related. Every time things got silent, "Siehe Da!" I heard the hum. I asked the (older) couple and she heard it, he wasn't sure. They live 3-4 kilometers away from me. Three weeks ago, my step son and his girlfriend were over to visit. When we had breakfast, she asked about that strange noise. Last fall I went to the forest, trying to locate the sound or at least find differences in its level. I drove, then walked about 4 kilometers from where we live and still heard it. What I'm saying is, I don't think I'm imagining this. If I do, I indent to find out.
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[–] • 1 pt

Years ago I chased some low-frequency noise, which might have been the house just resonating with some frequencies from traffic and other things. I spent hours trying to eliminate it (a fence outside, supports inside). I ended up just having a bathroom ventilation fan with a weight bolted to one blade to make it badly off-balance, screwed to the baseboard so it would resonate the wall some to create its own low-frequency sound to mask the other at night. These days I just have an old small subwoofer connected to an mp3 player playing brown noise with strong low-frequency content, at a low volume. It knocks out all the cars idling and driving by, especially in the morning.

I was actually relieved to find that what I was experiencing was likely internal (tinnitus), since it meant I didn't need to go on another chase trying to find a case/solution. Well, as long as it only occurred in dead silence, since even a quiet fan made it go away. If it was all the time I think I'd go out of my mind. It's actually not acted up in weeks, even in dead silence (which also confirms that it's not external, because I couldn't have many days in a row of dead silence all day in the house even though they were busy days out in the world).