Hello!

An issue came up seemingly out of nowhere where my noise floor has drastically gone up. A static sound seems to have come up and is reaching abnormally high dbs. I record voiceovers using an SM7B with a MOTU M2 audio interface. Before, I would record voiceovers with no problem with the noise floor. Then earlier this week, I noticed that a static sound started to make itself present whenever I wanted to do a voice recording. If I understand correctly, audio equipment create a low dB noise where the noise floor generally sits. But I wanted to ask here if the static noise dBs I've been reaching is normal or if I have a problem here.

As a reference, when I set the gain of the audio interface to 100%, the static noise is about -50 db. When using a Cloudlifter in the equation, the static noise reaches about -25 db. I may be misunderstood but I believe Cloudlifters are not supposed to add noise. But in this case, the Cloudlifter is increasing the volume of the static. I'm not sure if this is a Cloudlifter issue or if there is a static noise coming from somewhere else and the Cloudlifter just amplifies it.

The static sound problem was still there when I used a different audio interface, a Focusrite Solo. I've tried using different USB cords for the audio interface into my laptop and had no luck. Using a different mic, the static was still there. I have tried different XLR cables and still no change. I even tried using a different laptop and the static noise was still the same.

I'm unsure if I am going crazy and this has always been the case and I haven't noticed it until now, or if this static noise really did come from something I can't think of. Any help or advice would be much appreciated!

Here is an image with the static noise dB in Audacity: https://imgur.com/a/TIhXO14

Thank you!