Treating 'poppy' clips

[Dave Oliffe]

Hi folks,

I know my way around CbB pretty well, but there's always something to learn. Here's my question:

Is there a fast way to eliminate popping from each end of a clip of audio, without having to manually zoom all the way in and add a fade at each end? 

I do this if I've chopped out a piece of audio in order to then Groove Clip loop it. If I don't add fades, then any abrupt popping gets looped too.

Many thanks,

Dave

Edited August 13, 2021 by Dave Oliffe

[John Vere]

Yes there’s a setting to cross fade at zero somewhere in preferences 

[Dave Oliffe]

1 minute ago, John Vere said:

Yes there’s a setting to cross fade at zero somewhere in preferences 

Thanks, John. Do you know what that will essentially do? For eg, how big-a-fade it would add?

[John Vere]

Sorry. All I know is It should be the default setting and myself I’ve never had to change it. my guess is it’s fast. 
 

I can’t think that I’ve ever had any artifacts on clip ends.  and I chop up a lot of tracks. I’m just careful about the spot I choose by zooming in on the wave form. Never use snap when doing this.  Turn it off. 

Edited August 13, 2021 by John Vere

[Gswitz]

John, snap to zero crossing can be helpful.

 

[Will.]

I agree with Gswitz. 

[Dave Oliffe]

Thanks, I'll check it out

[bitflipper]

That pop is unavoidable when the audio's numerical value at the split point is anything other than zero, because otherwise you're telling Cakewalk to go from X to nothing in an instant. Speakers can't go from X to zero instantly, but they'll try to comply and move as fast as they can. That results in the pop you hear. It's the sound of your speakers being kneecapped. Ouch.

The term "zero crossing" just means a point in the waveform where the sample value happens to be zero. It's called a "crossing" because unless the clip is silent that zero value occurs as the waveform is crossing from a positive to a negative value, or vice versa.

Open Preferences (press "P") and scroll down to Customization -> Snap to Grid. There is a checkbox labeled "Snap to Nearest Audio Zero Crossings". Even if you don't have grid snap enabled generally, with this option selected you'll always select a zero crossing when splitting a clip. No more pops.

[John Vere]

On 8/14/2021 at 11:56 AM, Gswitz said:

John, snap to zero crossing can be helpful.

 

Ok that’s what I mean 

it sucks when I post from my phone cause I can’t open cakewalk to check this stuff. 

[Dave Oliffe]

6 hours ago, bitflipper said:

That pop is unavoidable when the audio's numerical value at the split point is anything other than zero, because otherwise you're telling Cakewalk to go from X to nothing in an instant. Speakers can't go from X to zero instantly, but they'll try to comply and move as fast as they can. That results in the pop you hear. It's the sound of your speakers being kneecapped. Ouch.

The term "zero crossing" just means a point in the waveform where the sample value happens to be zero. It's called a "crossing" because unless the clip is silent that zero value occurs as the waveform is crossing from a positive to a negative value, or vice versa.

Open Preferences (press "P") and scroll down to Customization -> Snap to Grid. There is a checkbox labeled "Snap to Nearest Audio Zero Crossings". Even if you don't have grid snap enabled generally, with this option selected you'll always select a zero crossing when splitting a clip. No more pops.

Thanks for this, very helpful. I had a basic understanding of this, but no idea Cakewalk had tools to solve it. I'm guessing that I'll have to be careful when creating Groove clips that the clip is 'numerically' lined up first as the zero crossing is likely to be at a point which isn't exactly in line. 

Certainly don't want my speakers getting kneecapped anymore, that won't do. I dislocated my knee playing football (soccer) so I know how much that hurts!