Noise In My Recording

[TommyLee_Vocal]

I have the Sonar 5 producer; Edirol UA20 audio/midi interface; 1.5 Gigs of ram; Window XP home. Using a MXL 2003 recording mic w/ 48 phatom. My problem is that when I'm listening back to a recording, I'm getting alot of air sound like I have the record volume way up, but it's only about 2/3. I'm using a 4:1 ratio 75 attack on compression and I'm gated at around 41. It just started acting this way. It was doing fine for about 3 months until this week. Nothing that I know of has been changed. The UA20 does have a 16 or 24 bit driver. I've been using the 24. I would be thankful for any help on this situation.

[andychap]

It's difficult to say what it is. Is it a vocal you are recording, if so I use compressor settings of:

Ratio 2 - 2.5 ( I never go over 2.5)
Attack 25 - 35
Release 330 - 350
Threshold - minus 10 (to start with)
Gate - minus 30
Make up gain needs about 1.5 - 2 dB to bring the levels back up.

Obviously settings will vary from one piece of eqpt to another but your settings do seem a bit high to me.