How to Reduce Unwanted Noise When Recording DI Guitar On PC

When comes to DIY home recording, especially for recording an instrument like guitar or bass by DI (Direct Input) to Audio Interface on PC, we often deal with unwanted noise, Hum and buzz.

The worst you can get of the unwanted noise while recording a guitar/bass on DIY build PC is the computer fan noise join the guitar sound in the recorded track.

In most cases, the noise becomes worst when you use a high gain amp simulator. Not only in DIY build PC, but the issue also occurs in the most desktop computer.

It’s good to have a sweet ’noise’ from distortion effect but beside that, unwanted noise is really horrible.

So in this post, I want to share with you guys how I cheat when recording guitar track on PC and get rid of hum and buzz and get a better or you can say “a little better” guitar track sound quality.

This is my old experiences ‘diary’ when still active in creating and learning to make music. So if you are into audio and home recording stuff this post may useful.

But before that below is the example of my demo track that has unwanted noise, you will hear it on clean overdrive part:

And below is sample track after I did some fix;

There is a big difference in change that you can hear. Okay! here is what you can do to ‘reduce’ the unwanted noise when you record DI guitar on your PC.

Reduce Unwanted Noise By Find Out The Source

First thing you need to do is finding the unwanted noise and the first suspected gear is your instrument. In this case, your guitar/bass.

1. Fix noise from guitar

It could be the cables/jack if you have change your guitar pickup several times it could be a bad guitar electronic soldering and wiring. If you find there is an issue with the guitar then try to fix it but if you check everything is okay with your guitar or in case you are using a brand new guitar then it must be something else.

If you are a typical guitar player who likes to doing surgery to your instrument then it must be caused by bad wiring. I often do that and yeah! soldering is not easy as it seem, you know what I mean :)))

So find help from electrician man for soldering your guitar, and show him your guitar wiring diagram, so he can help you have better soldering. And always use the good guitar cable for standard recording. DIY cable sometimes caused the issue too, once again is about the bad soldering stuff.

2. Reduce noise from PC

The second suspected gear is your PC,

Of course beside the human source, PC is the only gear that responsible for all that happens in digital recording. So how to reduce noise that comes from the computer?

If you are using a DIY build PC you may have the issue, since there is a mix and match component in home build PC it could be the source of unwanted noise that come from PSU fan or cases fan.

I’ve been building DIY PC several times, I still remember the first PC I build my self is a desktop computer with a Pentium 4 processor. And believe it or not until now the PC still live, I give it to my nephew.

And after build some other PC with a ‘better’ spec I think I will never deal with a pc noise again, but the issue still happen.

It comes to my conclusion that I think the noise must come from the PSU fan. But after I change the PSU it still has a noise this time wasn’t a sound of the fan that becomes my issue but a continuously hum sounds.

After I check and ask an electrician man, the hum sound can be caused by the bad home grounding. I will not explain the technical stuff here but I will explain an easy illustration, something like this;

When you record or play your guitar on DAW and at the same time your sister watch TV there is a massive hum noise. But when there is nobody turn on another electronic stuff, the massive hum has become less.

So! If you have the same issue even you are using a factory build computers, that must be your home or your apartment likely having a bad grounding issue.

No, you don’t need to ask the electrician to fix this, there is a better way to make the noise caused by grounding problem gone. Is by using a Power Converter Regulator Stabilizer.

There is some brand that you can find on local computers store or buy it online at Amazon. Below is the example of Power Stabilizer.

You can check it on Amazon and say goodbye to bad grounding noise :).

Other solution

By fix the two issue above, you now should not deal with the unwanted noise. At least you now deal with less noise.

But! If you are playing music with heavy sounds like Metal or Hard Rock. You will need to using a high gain/low gain sound in your track right?

Then you probably will hear again the unwanted noise (not noises from the amp sim)

Even if you are using a gate on your track signal chain the noise will be heard again.

What I did to cheat this issue, is by adding another gate in the DAW input. And set it not too aggressive. Just to make the noise that almost unheard when not using amp simulator software.

You can always use a built–in VST Gate in your DAW software that you use.

Okay, that’s how I cheat the unwanted noise in my home build computers. And by far it works.

So for you guys who just start to learn digital recording stuff, hope this post useful to reduce unwanted noise.

I have no longer as active as in the past in creating music as my hobby. But I will keep on sharing things related to DIY home recording stuff in this blog occasionally for sure.

If you want to start a discussion or have another issue etc please feel free to leave your comment below. Maybe I can help.

If I can’t, then someone else that can may generous enough to chime in here to help you 🙂

Thanks for reading 🙂