What is the best way to remove pops and clicks in audio tracks?

[Simon Webster]

Im trying to remove clicks on a projects audio tracks and am not sure exactly how. There are some that need fixing due punch ins and comping etc, and a few in a vocal track, ive tried doing a crossfade and zooming right up to remove the piece of audio, without any results and im not particularly sure im doing it correctly. How do I troubleshoot what is causing the pops, and what would be the solution for removing the pops on where different audio tracks intersect and on my vocal track? Cheers

[tecknot]

Hi Simon,

It really comes down to adjusting your buffer settings both in CbB and your audio interface.  Also make sure that your audio sample rate and bit depth match all around (CbB, audio interface and Windows).

Kind regards,

tecknot

[John Vere]

His post brings up the question of are the pops showing as spikes in the audio tracks and are always heard in the same place? Or are you only randomly hearing them? 

Sorry I’m on my cell phone so can’t check, but there’s a setting that by default sets crossfades at zero crossing which generally eliminates the problem. 
If a clip gets cut in the middle of a audio signal you will hear a click or pop.
So the desire is to split right when the signal is at zero db or as close as possible.
One  solution is to slip edit the crossing point to find a place at which it doesn’t glitch. 
Sustained guitar is hard as it might never have a zero crossing point. 
You almost have make sure when tracking to avoid punching in during sustaining parts. 
Vocals are not a problem because we have to breath and there plenty of places to use as breaks between clips. So not sure why you are hearing glitches there. 
If these glitches are not as a result of editing points and  are being recorded to tracks then you have an audio dropping out issue. 
Increase your interface drivers buffer or better yet bypass effects when tracking. Check your system with the resplendent latency monitor too. https://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

Edited February 4 by John Vere

[tparker24]

Check the Youtube video How to Edit Audio in Cakewalk by Bandlab  by the wonderful Mike of Creative Sauce. 

Lots of good info.  And starting around 13:00 or so, he specifically covers pops and clicks.  His preferred method

is to use Auto Crossfades.

Edited February 5 by tparker24
Mention Auto Crossfades.

[Simon Webster]

On 2/4/2024 at 5:49 PM, John Vere said:

His post brings up the question of are the pops showing as spikes in the audio tracks and are always heard in the same place? Or are you only randomly hearing them? 

Sorry I’m on my cell phone so can’t check, but there’s a setting that by default sets crossfades at zero crossing which generally eliminates the problem. 
If a clip gets cut in the middle of a audio signal you will hear a click or pop.
So the desire is to split right when the signal is at zero db or as close as possible.
One  solution is to slip edit the crossing point to find a place at which it doesn’t glitch. 
Sustained guitar is hard as it might never have a zero crossing point. 
You almost have make sure when tracking to avoid punching in during sustaining parts. 
Vocals are not a problem because we have to breath and there plenty of places to use as breaks between clips. So not sure why you are hearing glitches there. 
If these glitches are not as a result of editing points and  are being recorded to tracks then you have an audio dropping out issue. 
Increase your interface drivers buffer or better yet bypass effects when tracking. Check your system with the resplendent latency monitor too. https://www.resplendence.com/latencymon

Just taken a look at the audio track and yes there is spikes showing where the click sound is. Sorry Im not quite sure what you mean with the crossfades at zero crossing solution. How would I split it and highlight and know where the signal is at 0db?

[John Vere]

So you are saying that these spikes are  recorded and appear in the middle of  audio phrases like a word in a vocal? 

We can help you sort this out but you need to give a little more feedback as well as trying to stay involved in your post. 

You asked 2 questions and given some solutions to try? Did you? 
 

[Simon Webster]

On 2/5/2024 at 1:24 AM, tparker24 said:

Check the Youtube video How to Edit Audio in Cakewalk by Bandlab  by the wonderful Mike of Creative Sauce. 

Lots of good info.  And starting around 13:00 or so, he specifically covers pops and clicks.  His preferred method

is to use Auto Crossfades.

Hey, yes I follow him and have just watched this video, I did split a clip where the pop is pictured below, the pop happens in that selected area and goes on for most of the duration of the selected part so its hard to identify exactly where, I have messed around with the auto crossfades in a few areas here which Ill attach but i cant seem to get rid of it, so I may not be doing it correctly. Ive moved an auto crossfade around in the area of the sharpest transient where it is coming but do I need to be more specific?

[Simon Webster]

On 2/24/2024 at 3:45 PM, John Vere said:

So you are saying that these spikes are  recorded and appear in the middle of  audio phrases like a word in a vocal? 

We can help you sort this out but you need to give a little more feedback as well as trying to stay involved in your post. 

You asked 2 questions and given some solutions to try? Did you? 
 

Hi, apologies only just got back round to replying on this, I dont always get the time to come on here. I have tried the crossfading solution by splitting a clip and moving the auto crossfade around to no avail, I go into more detail in my reply above with some screenshots. Having watched the creative sauce video, its obvious as to where to do the crossfade where as mine seems less obvious.  The second screenshot here is where it looks like it is, although not too sure, the selected area in the first clip is where you can hear the click go on for several milliseconds, I have also tried removing a chunk of the audio where it happens but I had to remove a lot of it leaving the vocal phrase sounding unnatural.