Sam Spoons wrote: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.
