Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with noise

wtf noise

sgrass — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 01:10:06 -0800

TorontoFilter: What the hell is that noise? It started with a huge crash that I thought was a tree falling on my house, and it keeps going. You can hear it in Leaside and Bathurst & Eglinton. I can't find anything on any news sites and I'd like to go to sleep.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

vernondalhart — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 09:43:43 -0800

I seem to be getting a regular ground hum-type noise when I record onto my Macbook. I have two older analog synths, both plugged into a mixer, which is then hooked up to the macbook.

Clearly, the noise is coming from the one synth: If it isn't plugged into the mixer, I get no noise; if it is, I get noise. However, if I plug headphones into either the synth or into the mixer, I don't get any noise; I can only hear it when I'm listening to the final result through the macbook.

Why is this? This doesn't seem to make much sense to me.

As an aside, it wouldn't be quite so bothersome if Audacity would be able to remove this noise; it's clearly a very regular ground-hum type noise; but if I get a noise profile from before recording, and use that to eliminate the noise, it doesn't do anything noticeable to the resulting audio.

Any ideas? I've tried using different cables, I've tried pluggin the synth directly into the macbook to no avail. It'd be nice to be able to record from the keyboard, but as it stands, I seem to be out of luck.

Drummer Living In An Apartment

defben — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 18:18:07 -0800

I use to play the drums, really miss it, and want to get back into it. What are my options for living in an apartment complex? I've tried some of the cheaper electronic kits in stores. They seemed pretty lousy to me; didn't "respond" close enough to the real thing. Are there any cheap electronic kits people can recommend? What are my other options? What are my options when I want to get together with people and play?

How noisy is noisy in Toronto?

mariokrat — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 08:49:56 -0800

Is it (will it be) that noisy at Charles Street around Bloor and Yonge? I'm moving to Toronto with my wife next month to go to graduate school. We haven't found a place yet, and I just got an e-mail this morning from the U of T telling me that I've been offered a two-bedroom place at their 35 Charles Street West family housing building. Sounds great, except we need to reply in two days, and the letter says:

It is a busy, noisy neighbourhood. Immediately north of building 30, there are two new high rise building developments planned, one of which is already under construction. If your family is bothered by noise, particularly if one or more members in the family will be at the apartment throughout the day, you may be very unhappy living on the north side of 30 Charles St West as it is closest to the construction.

We're currently living in a central part of Calgary and have both lived in noisier parts of Tokyo and Yokohama so a good amount of city noise won't be of much concern to either of us. Neither me nor me wife need to be in the apartment during the day (although it would be nice if I could study there from time to time), but I would be unhappy if we were woken up every Saturday morning at 8 from the nearby construction.

I'm going to ask a friend in Toronto to try and see the room, but I'm not sure if he'll be able to make it before Thursday.. So if you're in Toronto, have you noticed any huge amounts of noise and dust in the area of Charles Street? Should I look for other things, or would it be silly for me to pass on this cheap, central apartment?

Also, has anyone lived at the Charles Street residences? Are they any good?

Open plan offices: Do they suck?

Mike1024 — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 13:06:01 -0800

ArchitectureFilter: What evidence supports the use of open plan offices, from a worker productivity perspective? I recently went on a tour of a newly constructed office building. It's very open plan (picture) with several hundred people in one contiguous area spanning multiple floors.

Most of my past experience has been in shared enclosed offices (2-7 people in an enclosed space) and when touring the building, it struck me that the wide-open environment would be noisy, which would present a distraction that would negatively impact upon workers' productivity.

However, if the negative effects were as bad as they intuitively seem, the building would not have been built in this style. Clearly, there must have been rigorous studies performed demonstrating that open plan designs do not have a substantial negative impact on productivity.

Where can I find these studies?

My bike is making a clicking noise...

coolguy#1 — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 20:30:27 -0800

My bike is making a clicking noise... Hey everyone. I recently purchased a used bike and it is making a mysterious clicking noise. I have been able to isolate the noise to the rear tire, and it pretty much only occurs when the wheel is rotating on its own, as opposed to when I'm pedaling. I tried lying the bike on its side and spinning the rear wheel in an attempt to see what may be causing the noise, but I can't see anything physically tapping the spokes or any other part of the wheel as it turns, so I'm stumped.

Thanks in advance for any help!

A room of one's own... please.

purplefiber — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:15:30 -0800

My friend recently moved into a new apartment where the two bedrooms are separated by french doors (with glass panes). What is the best way to soundproof this wall? Interested in both the cheapest and most soundproof solutions. Thanks!

Low-Riders and My Sanity - Am Losing My MIND!

watercarrier — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 09:40:22 -0800

Would you go crazy if you were living in the boonies and every couple of minutes some dude comes careening around your corner on an ATV or motorcycle revving up slowly and maliciously? Just wondering if it's only me that's reacting like hot coals are being poured down my brain neurons. What would you do? What are my options? I live in the wild-wild-wild east and there's no *law* that anyone will be upholding soon. They're kids with wheels and noise and they've found that it's better than drugs. I've got music - loud to drown it out - got ear plugs - what else am I missing here? Is there anything I can do to deter these freaks?

What is a Hariky GK-3?

lekvar — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 14:00:23 -0800

Tell-me-what-this-thing-is-Filter: What is a Hariky GK-3? I found this most intriguing object at a local goodwill store. I noticed that it has what appears to be an earphone jack, so I bought it in the hopes that it might be some kind of wonderful noise maker that Google could shed some light on. Google failed me, though.

Pics and descriptions:
Right Side: There's a jack here, and a standard male 1/8" audio plug fits in here, though I'm not 100% sure that's what the jack is there for. When powered speakers are plugged in it does produce noise though.

Front: With speakers plugged in to the jack on the right side, the unit will produce clicks which coincide with the red light in the upper-right corner flashing if the upper switch is set to TREAT. The OUTPUT knob changes the volume and the PULSE know changes the speed of the clicks, but neither affect the output to any great degree.

If the upper switch is set to SEARCH the unit produced a tone which is unaffected by the position of the PULSE knob, but varies by about a whole tone when the OUTPUT knob is turned.

The +/- switch (next to the OUTPUT knob) doesn't seem to do anything.

Left side: what appears to be a DC power jack with an unusual symbol, and jack that looks like a standard 1/8" audio plug but is actually a little to small to plug in to. It too has an unusual symbol, which looks to me like a pic of the old-style "earbuds" from the 60's and 70's.

Back: I'm guessing the characters are Japanese (here's a pic that's hopefully a little clearer), but I'm no expert. It also says:
HARIKY GK-3
KANARAY CO, LTD
MADE IN JAPAN

This... thing cost me $2.50 and I've already gotten my money's worth just playing around with the noise it produces but now I want to know more.

So, MetaFilter, what is this thing?

How to stop an annoying buzzer next door?

i less than three nsima — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 14:19:15 -0800

What can I do about an obnoxious parking lot buzzer in the building next door? My apartment is a first floor place on an intersection in Philly. About 50 yards down the block from where my bedroom windows are located, there is the exit gate for the covered parking lot of a large high-rise apartment complex. This gate has an automatic system that opens from the inside (it is only 1-way), presumably with a key card or something.

My problem is that attached to this gate is a very loud and very obnoxious warning buzzer (for pedestrians, i assume, although my block isn't that busy) that goes off so long at the gate is opening, opened, or closing. This amounts to about 30 seconds of loud buzzing - think an elementary school fire alarm - for each car that exits. As this is a big apartment complex, cars are exiting the parking lot at almost all hours of the day.

This buzzer is seriously driving me crazy! I am a pretty insensitive person to city noise, but the irregularity (and yet constant, at all hours) and piercing quality of this alarm buzzer is really horrendous. It keeps me up at night, it wakes me super early in the morning, I really can't stand it!

What can I do? Closing the windows helps a little, but I'm too cheap for A/C, and its just too hot to not keep them open. Isn't this kind of obnoxious noise "disturbing the peace" or something?

buzz off

trig — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 02:44:21 -0800

I live in an apartment that gets a lot of street noise, so sometimes I use earplugs when it gets to be too much. The problem is that when I use them I hear a constant buzzing noise that's really distracting. Any ideas on whether this is because of cheap earplugs (and hence avoidable with better ones), noise that isn't being blocked out, or just the way brains work?

What is this strange noise?

jchgf — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:27:05 -0800

What is this strange, seemingly bird-related noise? On a few occasions during the night last summer, I heard a strange, low-pitched noise at rhythmic intervals from the courtyard window of my apartment in Montréal, Canada. At first, it seemed like a percussive sound, as if someone was hitting a large plastic trash bin. I was intrigued by its rhythmic regularity, but overall it did not appear to be caused by a human, and I could not identify the precise nature of the sound. I don't remember this noise occuring during the day.

A few days ago, I heard the noise again and I managed to capture audibly once the intriguing sound. It appears to be linked to another obvious bird noise, an unpleasant bird screech (coming from an owl? A bat?). The pattern seemed to approximate to eight or so instances of the solo screech, one instance of the intriguing low-pitched sound in synch with another screech, and repeat.

Can you positively identify the nature of the two sounds?
Is it possible the two noises are generated by one bird?

Thanks!

And on the 7th day, he finished the kitchen

M.C. Lo-Carb! — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 08:06:25 -0800

What time is it ok to use a power saw in the driveway on Sunday morning? So my wife and I are in the middle of a home improvement project that has, of course, run way beyond its budgeted amount of: 1.) trips to Home Despot; 2.) money; and most importantly, 3.) time.

I can finish it today, if I get some cabinets built this morning. It's 9:00 now, and I'm thinking of firing up the power tools. We live in an older, close-in neighborhood of our city.

Is there a generally-accepted appropriate time to make noise like that on a Sunday morning? Will I incur the wrath of my neighbors? Will I ruin Sunday morning newspaper-reading or other rituals?

Getting starlings to shut up?

Lentrohamsanin — Thu, 22 May 2008 16:12:55 -0800

We have a nest of starlings living in our ceiling. The nest is too far back to remove. We mostly don't mind, except that the noise of the nestlings can be quite annoying. Is there any way to shut them up without killing them?

Hush Puppy

owtytrof — Thu, 15 May 2008 20:17:54 -0800

Why doesn't my puppy make a sound? We just got a new puppy (about a year old) and he seems to not be able to bark. When he whines it sounds like a whisper. When he's playing with his toys and "play growls" you can barely hear him. I know he was checked out by the shelter and updated on his shots and they said he was healthy. He seems fine other than not being about to really bark.

I know you're not a vet and that you're not my vet but I'm just looking to see if anyone has had any similar situations.

Noisefilter (possibly literally?)

synecdoche — Thu, 01 May 2008 19:10:33 -0800

Is there anything we can do to keep our apartment a bit quieter? My girlfriend and I just moved into a new apartment, which we like very much. However, there is one problem: noise. We're on the top floor, but we can hear quite a bit of what our neighbour directly below us is up to.

I don't think he is (often) being excessively loud. For instance, right now, he's talking on the phone below me at what seems to be a reasonable volume, but I can still hear him and even, occasionally, make out the odd word. When his computer makes noise (such as when he gets an instant message on MSN) I know about it too. Things are a bit more frustrating when he listens to music. While there have been a couple of times when he has turned up the volume, for the most part it is, I think, fairly reasonable; it just seems as though the floor between our apartment and his is very, very thin. (I am not sure how much of what we do he can hear.)

I'm not sure what we can do. The floor is well-padded carpet through most of the apartment, though it is an older building. Most of the time he isn't really doing anything wrong, and it isn't as though we can ask him to not talk on the phone or ever listen to music.

Any tips on dealing with this? We're both grad students who do work at home, and would love things to be a bit better than "just tolerable." We're in Southern Ontario, if it matters. Thanks.

My elbow makes noise. What?

tksh — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 19:36:09 -0800

What to do if your elbow makes popping noises when you do push ups? I tried a quick set tonight after a few months of not having done any and I can hear and feel a minor popping noise in my elbow when go down. It doesn't hurt but it sounds like if a joint had snapped into place all of a sudden.

Has anyone else experienced this?

It's the hunting stories with noise album, of course

scruss — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 03:05:03 -0800

My friend had an album - mainly spoken word pieces with electronic noise. It was a story about a man who went out hunting with his friends, who laughed at him. Help my friend find it, please. In one of the later variations, the hunter killed and ate his friends. The album was Canadian perhaps, late 60s.

I don't want to notch my hearing!

vansly — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 10:42:05 -0800

How do I make a piece of test equipment quieter? The person at the workbench next to me just got a new piece of test equipment (Aeroflex IFR 2975). It is placed on top of a shelf that sits between our two benches. The fan on this thing if very loud.

Is there a way, without modifying the equipment, to deaden the noise from this fan? I think the majority of the noise is air noise, with only a little bit of the noise coming from the actual workings of the fan itself.

Quietest fridge?

kilikina73 — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 11:22:02 -0800

Our family room is right next to our kitchen, and our very old and noisy refrigerator is *right* next to our couch. Watching TV is turning into a volume-control nightmare. What is the quietest (North American) botton-freezer refrigerator I can spend my tax refund on?

chasing imaginary bunnies

judith — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 00:17:48 -0800

Why does my dog giggle in his sleep? When my 2.5 yr old JRT, Lyle, sleeps, he occasionally makes a sound that is somewhere between a giggle and a whine. He's never made this sound while awake, and it's mostly during a light sleep/nap rather than deep nighttime sleep. I find it somewhat adorable, so I'm hoping it's a sign of delight rather than torment for him. Google doesn't reveal much on the subject of dog dream capacity. Any thoughts? Research? Anecdotal evidence?

How to reduce/eliminate RF noise in my home studio?

scottandrew — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 13:31:45 -0800

My little bedroom studio could use some help. It's hard to find a spot where the mics and guitar pickups don't pick up RF noise. And when I do find a spot, it's usually closely facing a wall, and/or too far away from the recording computer. Actually, even with the computer off and the lights off, the guitar picks up a ton of gnarly RF static.

I also have a weird issue where my reference monitors pick up even *more* noise when I turn off the LCD monitor on my recording PC. I don't get it :/

I've googled up quite a bit of info on RF noise online, but most of it goes right over my head when they start talking impedance, Hz, etc. It helps to know the science, but I really just need some practical things to try at home. Tips, tricks, suggestions?

I don't want a friend. I want quiet after 10:00PM

KevinSkomsvold — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 08:10:58 -0800

Remember my previous question regarding a noisy upstairs neighbor in our condo complex? Its gotten worse. Same neighbor, same problem. Heres what I have done to rectify/address the problem.

(My neighbor is a mother of two teenage sons).

- Gone up to their unit and asked them to stop making noise. I'm no prude or psycho. I am a working musician and make enough noise myself. My wife and I do not bother them unless it is after 10:00PM. Any other time we are totally ok and understand that noise will happen and we live with it. In the beginning they were very accommodating and turned the stereo/boom box down or stopped Wrestlemania 2008. Now they do not answer the door.

- Called the police (10 times over the course of five years). The last time they came they said take it up with my association. Little did they know that I had done this on many occasions. I have a chain of emails to prove it.

- Tried to get our association to intervene. According to our bylaws, they do this. We've gone through three associations/management companies. The first time, our association fined them and then rescinded it when she complained. I was livid. The second time (after they knocked a picture off our wall from the teenagers wrestling) she was asked to appear at a meeting with me and our association. She was a no show and they fined her again. Inexplicably, the noise stopped for almost six months and it was awesome. Then about four months ago it started up again only worse. The teenage sons, now a bit bigger and a fuckton more energy, like to play "Rock Band" in their room above my seven year old daughter's room. They play until 2:00 and 3:00am. My daughter has to sleep with us in our room, it is so loud.

- Tried to be a friendly neighbor. I'm always pleasant with them. I hold doors, help her with groceries, helped her find a 24 hour glass place when her rear car windows was smashed out, had generally good conversations with her. Her sons are two lumps who sit around, smoke dope with their gang-banger wannabe friends BUT I've tried to go out of my way to be friendly. I offered one of them guitar lessons, etc., but it is like talking to a brick wall.

This weekend it was utter mayhem upstairs. Starting at 5:00PM Friday and until last night at 1:00PM, the stereo was thumping, Rock Band until all hours. The mother was gone all weekend so it was party time. Our daughter spent Friday and Saturday sleeping with us because her room was a fucking echo chamber. We are at wits end.

I sent an email to my association telling them I am withholding all future assessments until the situation is addressed.

I feel like I'M the crazy one because, god forbid, I purchased a condo with the expectation of being able to sleep nights and raise my daughter.

Fuck being their friend. I tried. I don't want friends. I want fucking quiet after 10:00PM.

Advice? Any legal impressions are welcome. Next step is a lawyer if they'll even bother with a case like this.

(Apologies for the rambling. I'm not very happy right now).

How do I stop the noise from my motherboard coming through my speakers?

Grod — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 19:27:33 -0800

I have an old bose acoustic wave radio serving as my PC speakers. Powered but not connected to the computer the speakers produce a gentle hissing. When plugged in (via a 3.5mm to RCA cable) I hear noisy static -- not pure white noise, far more annoying -- and an intermittent whine that changes pitch depending on what's going on in the computer. For example, if the processor is under greater than 30% load all the noises go away. This does not happen with headphones so I think it is some combination of noise in the computer circuits and the amp built into the radio. My question is how do I make it stop? This is my only audio equipment and doubles as my alarm clock. Most of the time I can ignore the sound but sometimes it gets inside my skull and drives me nuts. There are all sorts of odd sounds I can't describe, when there are lots of read/writes to the ram I can tell by the sound. Very irritating. (Sometimes, like now, I end up with ringing in my ears which may or may not be related. Testing that is another reason I want to eliminate these noises.)

My indoor cat wants out.

anotherpanacea — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 19:21:40 -0800

Our indoor cat desperately wants to go outside. Help! We've had him for five years, and he's always been a bit zany, but this is new. He spends all his time by the door, yowling and scratching at the nob. I swear he tries to turn it. When I enter or leave the house, he tries to slip past me, and sometimes succeeds in making brief escapes. Lately, he's taking to yowling at the door throughout the night, which is not okay: sleep is not optional. We're at the end of out rope!