I am wondering if I am doing something wrong and just missing it . The following happens when sampling or resampling into my RYTM.
Example - I set my SRC to AUD L+R and have my PC audio coming in. If I try and use the threshold to record, it just records a loud hiss. It records this hiss, but if I send audio in, it deletes the hiss and audio comes in just fine. It’s super odd. If I am resampling a drum hit, it will record this hiss, but as soon as I hit the drum pad to trigger the sound, it records the sound and the hiss is deleted and gone.
Not sure if this is just a setting I am blaming out on and missing or a bug. Anyone else deal with this?
I will attach a pic of my threshold. It still seems to have sound coming in from the mains even though I turned the distortion down to zero and the compressor mix and threshold to 0.
I also tried with the source set to Audio L+R and sending nothing to the Rytm. The threshold shows no incoming audio, but when I press function yes to record, it grabs this static again until I send in sound, and then the static is gone and the sound comes in. It just odd. Took a pic of that static waveform so you can get an idea of it.
(Potentially dumb idea incoming) Are you hearing it when you’re in the process of recording or only after you’ve recorded something and are listening back?
The Rytm normalizes the recording level after it’s in there, so if you record “nothing” coming in and normalize it, it would probably raise the noise floor up to a pretty loud hiss. But that would only apply after you’ve recorded and are listening back — if you’re hearing the hiss before you even hit record, then the noise is coming from something else.
Yeah good question - I have no monitoring option on the internal tracks, but on my external ins, there is no hiss sound when I enable the monitoring. I can’t hear anything that way, just checked again. Also the sound comes in pretty hot (just based on the wave form, I can’t hear it) right before it auto normalizes.
This is one of those things where I feel like I am missing something obvious but it also may be some sort of glitch. I truly am not sure.
Yes this is almost certainly what is happening. The level of noise floor itself will depend on many factors including the DA converter on the PC, the AD on the AR, the cable, power, processor load, etc.
For the OP: does recording start immediately when you have the threshold set (but nothing playing on the PC)? If so, it’s most likely the noise floor.
Good practice would be to look at the audio level reported by the meter when you play audio from your PC into the AR. Set your threshold just a bit below this level as a place to start. You might have to adjust downward a bit depending on the initial transient characteristics of your source audio.
Just to add one more note on the topic of Rytm and noise/hiss —
Check the Amp page of all your tracks and dial back the Release setting. It’s set as infinite by default and generally leaks some noise into the rest of the signal chain even with no trigs / sequencer stopped. It’s especially apparent if you’re using the compressor but worth keeping in mind in a general effort to reduce unwanted noise/hiss.
I have a little ritual whenever I load up a new kit — hit the Amp page and continually dial back the Release knob while using my other hand to tap through each pad/track, then save the Kit (and hopefully save headaches down the road).
Bookmarking this, I had the exact same thing happen when sampling this weekend but don’t use the sampling much so figure there was user error. I also have hiss coming into Ableton and thought I was bypassing all master FX, but if I mute the plug-in the noise floor goes away (this is with all outputs individually routed to tracks in Ableton as well),
I’ll have to explore the Amp release, didn’t think of that as a potential cause
Update - my release is tight on all my drums, I just double checked.I typically do that anyway to tighten up my drum hits. I roll it from auto to 1 and then dial the decay in.
If I hit Func+ Yes it will start recording right away and show a pretty large waveform. If I keep that it normalizes and is all hiss. If I start hitting drum pads instead, that wave form disappears and it records all my drum hits perfectly wit no hiss. Sounds fine, so the good news is that this is not a huge issue I guess, just an odd one. I have no sound coming into the RYTM from the DAW, my mixers show zero noise floor from anything. And this is a pretty loud hiss, even before it normalizes, I can see the waveform is quite large compared to quieter sounds I have sampled in.
Its just a rather odd thing. Main thing it effects is I can not set my threshold low if I want to record that way, so I just have to do everything manually.
The weird thing is if I set the input to my L and R In, there is no sound showing on the threshold meter. Typically I can see a noise floor of some sort, but nothing in this case. But I can’t set ny threshold lower than around 15-20 without the recording starting right away and recording that same hiss sound (at the same volume based on the waveform). So I am mystified
You need to set the threshold higher, not lower. If you set it lower you’ll just make the problem worse. Watch the little tick on the meter visualization and make it go to the right, not the left.
I understand that, its pretty basic. My point is that the lowest I can set my threshold is around 20 even when no noise floor at all is being shown in the Rytm’s display. Essentially I should be able to have it close to 0.
Yeah it still happens regardless of jacks in the input or on another power selector. My studio is super clean for noise, I have wired it up well with noise suppressing PSU’s and my noise floor is incredibly minimal (I can see and hear all inputs on my TotalMix window) so thats not the issue.
Just to make sure I understand this correctly: you don’t hear any noise until you stop recording and normalize without actually recording a signal right? So it is just the noise floor being normalized, which is normal behaviour?
Hitting pads doesn’t make the noise disappear, it makes the AR see the peaks are way higher than the noisefloor, so it doesn’t show the noise waveform anymore, and only normalizes to the levels of the peaks of your drums instead of the noisefloor. This all seems like logical behaviour to me. It would be weird if after normalizing there would be no noise right?
Great point. I think there are two things getting muddled here. First is why is the noise loud when only recording noise but not when recording sounds. The normalization is clearly the reason.
The second issue is why is the threshold-based recording getting triggered even when no signal above the chosen threshold is visible in the meter?
(Hope I got those right)
For the second it could be that recording is triggered by instantaneous power while the meter displays an average over some period (like 1ms). I was able to “reproduce” erroneous triggering in my MkII AR with the threshold set as high as 9 (where nothing displayed on the meter), but it wasn’t consistent.
The issue is that the noise floor is very high and there is no source for it outside of the Rytm. There is no device sending in this level of volume to the Rytm that I can see. I look at my mixer and see no faders up sending volume into the Rytm, except my Mac’s audio and the volume when nothing is playing is -96db.
The main problem that I can’t figure out is why I need to set my threshold so high when there is no noise coming in, yet I still get a hot signal from something. On top of that I get the same exact white noise signal when I resample inside the Rytm or sample from the inputs. So I get the signal if I sample internally from the Rytm or if I sample externally. Its the same sound, same volume either way,.
Additionally if it was recording with that noise floor under it, I feel like I would hear it in the sample. I am not hearing anything, the samples are clean when I record them. Also the signal is loud before the normalization. I can see the waveform and it’s not a small thin one, it’s quite robust and would be very audible.
Ok I think I understand your issue. You mention pressing func+yes, doesnt this trigger recording automatically? I’m not in front of my Rytm but in my mind arming it to wait for the treshold for recording is just yes (without func)…could this explain the instant recording?
Also: the waveform is zoomed in when you start recording. As soon as the normal levels come in, you see the actual waveform instead of a zoomed in waveform from the noise. You mentioned not hearing it, so you also wont hear it under your samples right?
I arm it both ways. “Yes” causes it to trigger right away unless I raise the threshold fairly high, even though no visible signal is coming in.
And yeah I don’t hear that hiss at all under my samples. So really this issue is not a huge deal unless I want to threshold record. If I do that I have to raise the threshold higher than I would prefer or else the invisible hiss triggers the recording. So it’s basically easier to record with “yes”.
I should mention I had a different Mkii Rytm a few years back and don’t remember this issue at all. So it may be a bug or something with this one. That said, besides this one thing the Rytm has been working perfectly fine for me.
