In music and sound engineering the term signal-to-noise ratio refers to the amount of noise present in a channel of communication or recording.

A sound engineer’s job is primarily to reduce this noise through a variety of means including anything from selecting the type of recording equipment used to using digital enhancement techniques to reduce the noise after the recording has taken place.

Signal-to-noise ratio is defined in terms of decibals. A ratio higher than 1:1 indicates more signal than noise.

According to Information Theory proposed by Claude E. Shannon in 1948,

all channels of communication (or recording) inherently have within them a certain amount of noise. In other words, the noise cannot be completely removed, only mitigated.

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A complete list of all the methods used by sound engineers to eliminate noise in the studio would be too lengthy to list here. However, there are some very simple and effective methods every engineer should know.

Equalization

Sound engineers use equalizers to adjust various frequency channels within the recording to create necessary balance between these frequencies. This is useful if the noise is particular to a certain frequency.

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Filters

A wide range of digital filters have been developed that will eliminate noise. One such noise reduction filter is RX from iZotope for Ableton Live. Another way to filter noise is by using a gate.

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Microphones, Cables and Power Conditioners

A lot of time is spent selecting the right type of microphone and shielded cables so that electrical noise does not contaminate the recoding signal. All professional recording studios use something called a “power conditioner” which is a device that removes random electrical noise from the AC power outlet before that electricity enters the recording device. Power conditioners are absolutely necessary for a clean recording.

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