Equipment for recording neighbour noise

[Doveman]

I apologise in advance that I shall be blunt...

The Zoom and an SM58 are nowhere near accurate - or neutral - enough to let anyone judge anything apart from, "Yes, that was some noise." And noise-meters are not worth pursuing in an amateur context.

Having been involved in an informal 'neutral third party' noise assessment a few years ago, the other aspect is that, of course, the aggrieved soon notice every sound and noise emanating from the complained-of premises.

I could go on about my experience, but it won't advance the discussion any.

My tuppence...

1) Once social isolation has ended try and face-to-face with the occupiers of the noisy flat. Not letter, email, phone-call, but talk. Have an acquaintance with you - not a family member - and try and keep it light and smiley, but being clear about the issues as you see them. Don't get into an argument... do your best to part on at least calm terms.

2) If you really want to get evidence follow James Perrett's advice and hire some proper kit and keep those logs.

I agree that I'm probably more sensitive to noise as a result of this ongoing problem but I think I'm still objective enough to be able to distinguish noises that I notice but aren't that loud and other people wouldn't be bothered by from noises that are very intrusive and would annoy most people, like screeching water pipes that wake you up at 2am and the thud of a football being kicked against the wall for hours on end. I'd hoped the latter had stopped after I spoke to my neighbour at No.21 about it but unfortunately it's just started up again after a few days of relative peace and quiet. I say relative, because there's still been the noise from the neighbours directly above me at No.22 stomping about and slamming doors but at least that only happens for a short time each time and it doesn't do my head in as much as the constant thud of the football for hours.

Clearly the Zoom and the SM58 are useless for recording these noises, so I'll return the Zoom. I don't think there's any point spending hundreds of pounds hiring professional equipment though, as the council aren't going to accept that as evidence when I have the key to the case and could have tampered with it. I don't think there's anything magic about the professional noise recorders, they're just calibrated, combine an SPL meter with a noise recorder and some features for analysing the recordings.

So I'm sure there must be a cheaper mic and pre-amp/USB soundcard I could buy that would record the sound to at least prove I'm not imagining it. If no mic can record the noise, then hiring the professional calibrated recorder for a week isn't going to help me and if I can get a recording of the noise, then together with my logs it will help me persuade the council that the noise is unreasonable and get them to investigate further.

[Doveman]

This sounds stranger and stranger. You wouldn't get anything even vaguely forensic (or usable for your specific goal in this instance), but certainly you should get sound, especially if the noise is at 400Hz. I did use a Zoom once (don't remember the model but I think it was in the same H series) and while I wouldn't exchange the preamps for my Daking One or the Aphex 207D, I definitely got reasonable results.

And when shooting video I routinely record audio with cameras mic for alignment (in addition to a separate audio feed), which if anything must be worse than the Zoom, and you can clearly hear little noises well over any ambient noise.

Do you run the H6 from batteries? What is your gain setting? You positive you don't have the pad engaged? I read there are compressors on the unit, you positive they are disengaged? The recorder has different types of capsules, which ones are you using?

You can listen to my recording here to confirm that it's around 400hz.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LZwryI ... sp=sharing

I have been running the H4 from batteries but they're brand new. Mic gain was 80 I think and I did have the compressor engaged for that recording just to boost the sound to make it easier to hear without having to crank the volume up when playing it back. I don't think the H4 has different capsules.

The recording doesn't represent the situation accurately at all, as in reality there's no background noise/hiss and the noise I'm trying to record is about 10 times louder than it appears to be on the recording. Imagine the sound that's made when someone drags a chair on the floor in the same room that you're in and then muffle it a bit and that's about how loud it sounds in my flat. The closest example I could find is this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmaaOSMkB94

[Doveman]

Noisy/difficult neighbour is one of those things that can destroy the peace you expect in your own home - been there, got the t-shirt. In our case we spent quite some time talking to the neighbour, trying to get to know them, making friends - & then, out of the blue, something came up that we were able to help them out with.

So, as Mike says, the best possible way to resolve a problem like this is face-to-face without getting into an argument - but appreciate that sometimes this just isn't possible, in which case is moving an option for you?

One other thing that I don't think has been mentioned: In the UK if the noisy neighbour is a tenant they may well be in breach of their tenancy agreement ... but again that's another 'official' process, which may not work anyway.

Rob

Unfortunately I'm a disabled council tenant so there's not really any prospect of moving unless I win the lottery or rob a bank! I had to take the council to court a few years ago just to get them to agree that I had some medical need to move because of the noise, or at least my sensitivity to it, but that only gave me the right to bid on any 1-bed council flats that become available each week (most weeks they're aren't any), without having any idea if they might be even worse and I've only been placed in Band C, so I'd always be outbid by the thousands of people on the waiting list with higher priority in Bands A and B.

I don't know how I'd find out if the noisy neighbours are council tenants, or leaseholders, or private tenants. I can hardly ask them and if they say they're leaseholders or private tenants, ask them for the details of their mortgage company or their landlord so I can make a complaint.

Even if they're council tenants, the council is pretty useless and they've said in the past (not to me, in response to a question from someone else at a council meeting) that they can't / won't take action against a tenant whose kids were causing a noise nuisance as the courts would never evict someone for that.

[Doveman]

I would email the council and ask them if any measurements would prove useful and what equipment would be minimally acceptable.

Meanwhile keep records of the nuisance.

I will keep logs but I find it's difficult to remember to record when the noise stopped. If someone's been banging for half an hour, particularly if there's intermittent breaks for a minute or two, I find it doesn't register when the noise has actually not occurred for 10 minutes, so it can be 30 minutes before I realise that I haven't heard it for a while and I have to guess when it stopped.

[Doveman]

The tiny mics on phones and zooms and the cheap measurement mics are all very noisy.
Ultimately though an SPL log of incoming noise is bound to be more useful than a strange audio recording. There are a few iOS options pretty much of the Pro level. You could demo SoundMeter by FaberAcoustical or SPLMeter Pro by studiosixdigital.com

I've only got an Android phone, so I don't know if the mics are better on the iPhone but I found a few Android apps.

I tried this one first but it seemed a bit oversensitive/inaccurate as it registered me clicking my fingers from 2 feet away as 75db and shows an average of 30db when I'm not making any noise. https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... ibel&hl=en

This one was about the same, around 70db and 26db average.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... eter&hl=en

This one only registers the same noise as 59db and show an average when I'm not making any noise of 14db, which seems more probable but the meter doesn't match the Max shown as the needle only hits 30 or 40.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... eter&hl=en

[Sam Spoons]

Ambient noise on a typical living room it likely to be around 30-40dBA so it may be the first is closest to being accurate.

[Doveman]

Ambient noise on a typical living room it likely to be around 30-40dBA so it may be the first is closest to being accurate.

Ah OK, thanks. The second app has an option to display a table of typical noises (from breathing up to gun shots) and highlights the closest option to the current noise level and that shows Conversation as 60db so I just guessed that clicking my fingers was about the same volume as a normal conversation. That feature is totally inaccurate anyway, as it sometimes shows 30db Whisper when I click my fingers and sometimes 60db, whilst at the same time the meter shows 73db. The table can't even be showing the current average, as that doesn't go above 26db.

[Happyandbored]

Re: "I did have a problem with a neighbour letting her kid kick his football against the wall on the balcony all day"

Have you considered that maybe your expectations of peace and quiet are perhaps a tad unrealistic?

Re: "The recording doesn't represent the situation accurately at all, as in reality there's no background noise/hiss and the noise I'm trying to record is about 10 times louder than it appears to be on the recording."

For sure, the Zoom H4n pres aren't amazing, but they're not that bad. The fact the recorder's self noise is significantly louder suggests the sound just isn't really all that loud from the location you're recording. Sure, it's probably annoying.

All the sounds you report are fairly normal day-to-day household activity. As far as pipework goes, maybe take up the issue with your landlord as clearly your flat is poorly sound insulated, but it's not your neighbours fault. People need to walk around, use water and exercise.

Get some custom earplugs with filters or noise cancelling headphones and put some relaxing music on.

From my bedroom I can hear traffic on the main road pass by. From my studio, I can hear birds tweeting loudly outside, the hot water boiler in the cupboard and neighbours outside. This is because my boiler and windows are shit, not because traffic should be banned or birds are evil recording ruining fluffy little gits. My previous flat, I used to get woken up by traffic and the door slamming outside because the walls were thin and crap. Stuck earplugs in, problem solved.

You live in London mate. Tedious bollocks like this is why music venues are always closing and inner-city outdoor gigs are a waste of money.

Nice pipe sample anyway. Going to steal it, low pass filter the hiss out and use it to make an ambient drone patch in my next track.

[CS70]

You can listen to my recording here to confirm that it's around 400hz.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LZwryI ... sp=sharing

I have been running the H4 from batteries but they're brand new. Mic gain was 80 I think and I did have the compressor engaged for that recording just to boost the sound to make it easier to hear without having to crank the volume up when playing it back. I don't think the H4 has different capsules.

The recording doesn't represent the situation accurately at all, as in reality there's no background noise/hiss and the noise I'm trying to record is about 10 times louder than it appears to be on the recording.

I can see what you mean, the hiss in that recording is unbearable, and very unlike my experience with the Zoom handheld recorder. According to to what I read "80" is about -8dB attenuation, so a bit high but still. The Zoom has also an automatic gain control - was that turned on? And I'd definitely turn off all compressors, all you might be doing is increasing the noise level as there's obviously no peaks to tame. Nevertheless, it seems that the H4 is either bad or too difficult to use, so definitely a good idea to return it.

[Doveman]

I can see what you mean, the hiss in that recording is unbearable, and very unlike my experience with the Zoom handheld recorder. According to to what I read "80" is about -8dB attenuation, so a bit high but still. The Zoom has also an automatic gain control - was that turned on? And I'd definitely turn off all compressors, all you might be doing is increasing the noise level as there's obviously no peaks to tame. Nevertheless, it seems that the H4 is either bad or too difficult to use, so definitely a good idea to return it.

The auto gain was off when I made that recording but I've made another couple of recordings when my room was quiet, both with the compression off and the mic level set to 80.

This is the recording with the built-in mic with loads of hiss
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1T3HTti ... sp=sharing

and this is the recording with the SM58 with barely any hiss
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-yvA2r ... sp=sharing

So it would seem it's either faulty or the internal mic uses a poor quality pre-amp. Either way I'll send it back and look for a suitable mic and pre-amp that I can use with my PC. I've been thinking of buying an Aston Spirit for recording vocals but that's probably not ideal for recording general noise, not least because it's quite large and needs to be mounted. I think the professional recorders use a pencil mic but I don't know if they're highly directional shotgun capsules or if something cheap like this would do?
https://www.thomann.de/gb/behringer_c2_stereoset.htm

[Sam Spoons]

Anything recording or measuring ambient noise is likely to be an omni, something like this :- https://www.thomann.de/gb/sonarworks_xref_20_mic.htm

[CS70]

So it would seem it's either faulty or the internal mic uses a poor quality pre-amp.

Just to clarify (so that you can make your further choices better) - the preamplifier is the device that brings the tiny voltage produced by a microphone capsule to a higher amplitude - "line" level. It's very likely the Zoom uses the same preamps for both the built in capsules and the external mics (connected via the XLR input). So it may well be the built-in microphone capsules are faulty, or just noisy.

There's pro and cons to condensers - they capture more of the audible spectrum and may be more sensitive, but that means they also will pick more of natural ambience high-freqs. Anyways, nothing you can't remove with a low pass in post.

As for polar pattern, an omni will be better suited (but pay attention that it stays actually circular at most frequencies, not all "omni"s do - not meant at all as a commercial, but look for example at https://earthworksaudio.com/support/tec ... -response/).

There's still the fundamental question of whether or not is worth to make the effort, but of course you're the judge of that.

[Doveman]

Anything recording or measuring ambient noise is likely to be an omni, something like this :- https://www.thomann.de/gb/sonarworks_xref_20_mic.htm

Great, thanks.

[Doveman]

Just to clarify (so that you can make your further choices better) - the preamplifier is the device that brings the tiny voltage produced by a microphone capsule to a higher amplitude - "line" level. It's very likely the Zoom uses the same preamps for both the built in capsules and the external mics (connected via the XLR input). So it may well be the built-in microphone capsules are faulty, or just noisy.

There's pro and cons to condensers - they capture more of the audible spectrum and may be more sensitive, but that means they also will pick more of natural ambience high-freqs. Anyways, nothing you can't remove with a low pass in post.

As for polar pattern, an omni will be better suited (but pay attention that it stays actually circular at most frequencies, not all "omni"s do - not meant at all as a commercial, but look for example at https://earthworksaudio.com/support/tec ... -response/).

There's still the fundamental question of whether or not is worth to make the effort, but of course you're the judge of that.

I didn't think about the mic capsules themselves being the problem but you're probably right that the Zoom uses the same pre-amp for the internal and external mics, so it probably is the in-built mic capsules that are noisy.

My previous attempts to record the noisy pipes on my phone were much worse/quieter than the Zoom but I somehow managed to capture this recording the other day which has much less hiss than the Zoom.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mju9Zi ... sp=sharing

Thanks for the tip about checking for uniform polar response before I buy an omni for recording the noise. I'll probably buy the Aston Spirit anyway as I need a vocal mic and then see how well that captures the noise before buying something specific to record that.

[bri223087]

Hi Doveman, and all the people who commented on this post. I am sorry to jump on your post - but it’s like you’ve just explained my life!

I have had a Trogan 2 recorder installed in my flat for a few weeks before the lockdown and I’ve just been informed that it did not pick up enough evidence to help with my noisy neighbour situation.

I have been trying to record on my phone, to absolutely no avail.

Could anyone recommend what I might need to record the noise, as with Doveman - it is continuous stamping on their floor (my ceiling), dropping things on the floor, turning the taps on and off hard and fast which makes the water pipes bang...

Any of your suggestions will be greatly received, and Doveman - I would really appreciate it if we could chat about this as it seems you’ve managed to get further than me with this, and I’d love to get some advice from you.

Thanking you for your time in reading my reply, and I really would appreciate any help or advice you may be able to offer me.

[Avetius]

Hi guys, I found these pages having yhe same issue. Did you find a solution in the end? I might have one, if you are interested. It involves an inexpensive microphone type. Reach out so I know this topic is not closed.

[Doveman]

Hi guys, I found these pages having yhe same issue. Did you find a solution in the end? I might have one, if you are interested. It involves an inexpensive microphone type. Reach out so I know this topic is not closed.

Hi Avetius, I haven't really got anywhere with this, so I'd be interested in your potential solution.

I bought a MiniDSP UMIK-1 USB omnidirectional condenser mic as it was on sale quite cheap and I thought that being a USB mic it would avoid the typical noise with PC mic inputs. It does do a better job of picking up the troublesome noises than the Zoom recorder did but unfortunately there's quite a high noise floor still and the recordings don't give an accurate impression of how loud and intrusive the sounds actually are, so I need a better solution. The recordings show much higher peaks when a car is parking outside on the tarmac, which I can hear but is quite low-frequency and not intrusive or disturbing, whereas the noise of the person upstairs tapping/dropping stuff on the floor which is very sharp and intrusive and almost sounds as loud as someone doing that in my flat, doesn't create much of a peak at all.

[Sam Spoons]

The issue you will both be having is that 'nuisance noise' does not need to be loud to be intrusive. Any recording or level monitoring system will record or measure what is there but cannot factor in the effect it is having on you, the occupants of the apartment. Just as we are very good at 'filtering out' ambience when we are in a room listening to a performance or holding a conversation we are excellent at focusing on very quiet sounds that catch our attention in a way that a noise meter or recording device can't.

A couple of personal experiences spring to mind, the most recent was as a sound engineer employed to monitor noise for a wedding venue I met with the environmental health officer for the local authority, his opinion was that, outside the complainants home (roughly ¼ mile from the venue) the extremely faint rhythmic noise from the disco* in the venue constituted a breach of the agreement and was 'nuisance noise'.

The second was when I was camping beside Rutland Water, I was kept awake at night by the constant low level thud of, an apparently illegal, rave taking place about 5 miles distant across the lake (it was felt rather than heard but still enough to be a 'nuisance').

* The venue was a huge marquee rather than a brick structure hence the low SPL inside. The difference opening the doors made was dramatic and people talking in fairly normal, but animated, voices outside were significantly louder than the 'music'. The M6 Motorway, 6 miles distant, was also as loud as the 'noise' but was a gentle drone rather than rhythmic thumping.

[awjoe]

I've actually just received the Zoom H4n whilst I was typing this. I've tested it and I'm not impressed, as it seems to have much the same noise as my phone does, which rather swamps out the sound I'm trying to record. I can't imagine anyone could use this to record nature noises, bird song, etc. due to the noise, so I wonder what people would use for that?

Way late to the party, but my first impression was that if the Zoom didn't pick up the noise well enough, there'd be no convincing anyone that noise levels were an issue. I'm not saying that suffering isn't in the equation somewhere. I mean, 'there'd be no convincing anyone that noise levels were an issue' wouldn't apply to you if ambient noise got on your nerves.

Now I'm going to read the rest of this thread and see if anybody else said that before me. I entertain myself thus.

[Doveman]

The issue you will both be having is that 'nuisance noise' does not need to be loud to be intrusive. Any recording or level monitoring system will record or measure what is there but cannot factor in the effect it is having on you, the occupants of the apartment. Just as we are very good at 'filtering out' ambience when we are in a room listening to a performance or holding a conversation we are excellent at focusing on very quiet sounds that catch our attention in a way that a noise meter or recording device can't.

Some noises that bother me, like my neighbour stomping on the floor, are probably a combination of low-frequency and vibration and not particularly loud in terms of db, so I understand why it would be hard to record those, same as the low level thuds of music that you describe. My friend would probably sleep through or not be bothered by this type of noise, whereas I find it very irritating.

However other noises, like my neighbour tapping/dropping things on the floor and slamming doors are very audible and anyone who's been in my flat when they've occurred has clearly heard them. They might not be as startled/disturbed by them as I am but that's a different issue to how audible they actually are and that's why I don't understand why I'm having such difficulty getting a decent recording of them.

My attempts to record these noises have shown that not any recording system will record them. My phone and the Zoom recorder were pretty useless and my UMIK-1 is much better but the recordings still don't properly represent how it actually sounds in the room. I think it's partly because of the mic's noise floor, as in reality there's no constant noise in the room, so when the intrusive noise occurs the contrast is very noticeable, whereas on the recording the noise floor means that when the intrusive noise occurs it doesn't stand out as much. I think there's more to it than just that however, as the recording doesn't properly capture the frequency characteristics of the sound, how sharp and 'ringy' it is, or how the items being dropped bounce several times before settling (I guess that could be partly vibration noise though, which would be hard to capture).

So I still think a better/different mic might be able to record the noise better. MiniDSP have the UMIK-2 now, which has a noise level of -105.3dBfs (A) @ 0 dB gain, compared to the specs for the UMIK-1 which say "Output noise level at max IGPA -74dBFS" but I might buy an Aston Element mic to see how that fares, as it has a very low noise floor and I could use that for other purposes too. I'd need a USB pre-amp/audio interface though which can do the Element justice and not introduce any noise of its own and I don't know if there's anything reasonably affordable that would fit the bill.

[BangBang]

Hi all,

I am looking to see what piece of kit to use to record a neighbour who bangs on our wall in the middle of the night and wakes us up. I am in Ireland and have spoken with the police, they have said my only option is to bring a civil case. I have a written record of every incident over a 2 year period and the police are aware of everything. They even asked her to enter into mediation with us but she wouldn't.

I was using Audacity on the laptop but can't get a great quality recording off it, you can hear the bangs but in reality they are a lot louder.

The original poster on this thread mentioned the Zoom, would you recommend this? We got soundproofing done upstairs so the banging is very loud to come through this and can be heard throughout the house at its worst.

Any help appreciated!

[Doveman]

I can't recommend the Zoom for this I'm afraid. It just won't record the low-frequency banging in a way which represents how loud it is in reality.

[ef37a]

As this thread and others before it have shown, it is very difficult for the layman to record nuisance noise in a way that is presentable as evidence but I will suggest a fairly inexpensive way to at least record the thumping.

The Citronics CCU3 capacitor USB microphone makes recording very simple. If you have nothing else Audacity is a good choice but don't forget to 'Export as .wav' because no other software will play Audacity's own file regime.

You still need a reference level and spoken word would probably do. You could record a log of the events in a steady, conversational sound level at a measured distance. Record at 16bits 44.1kHz and don't worry if the levels are very low in Audacity. Minus 30, even -40dBfs is still valid. The noise might be a blessed nuisance but you could be surprised at how low the actual level is. A sound level meter can be useful as well but you want one with a "C" weighting. "A" cuts off a lot of LF. You could use a phone app' I calibrated mine against a cheap C SPL meter by waiting until my room was subjectively 'silent' and that gave 28-35dBC on my meter.

Dave.

[Sam Spoons]

Hi all,

I am looking to see what piece of kit to use to record a neighbour who bangs on our wall in the middle of the night and wakes us up. I am in Ireland and have spoken with the police, they have said my only option is to bring a civil case. I have a written record of every incident over a 2 year period and the police are aware of everything. They even asked her to enter into mediation with us but she wouldn't.

This is the most useful piece of evidence you could have. As has been demonstrated recordings rarely live up to expectations because noise that is a nuisance always sounds much louder to those on the receiving end than it actually is. The recorder can only record what is there not the effect it is having on the occupants.

In the UK the people to approach would be the local environmental health department, I don't know how it is in Ireland but would be surprised if your local authority don't have something similar and if so it is much more their province than the Police.