Blake Hodges

Q: Audio Clicks and Pops appearing in clips

In the final stages of editing a project that truly tests your machine, I am now running in to a mysterious problem.

 

I am nearly completely finished with a semi-complex project. Just in recent hours, certain clips have started developing "Clicks" and "Pops" that are very, very distinct. This might be fine.... if I were able to correct them. But conveniently, it appears that Final Cut Pro X does not give you this capability.

 

Is there a way to correct Clicks and Pops in FCPX? If not, is there some explainable reason why my audio is creating these problems slowly and surely? (the source media does not have the clicks)

 

Thank you for your insight!

Posted on Jul 22, 2011 9:15 PM

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Q: Audio Clicks and Pops appearing in clips

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  • by Blake Hodges,

    Blake Hodges Blake Hodges Jul 23, 2011 7:27 AM in response to Blake Hodges
    Level 1 (19 points)
    Jul 23, 2011 7:27 AM in response to Blake Hodges

    Bump. It's probably also worth noting that the audio clips in question did receive some basic equalization adjustments. I have since tried undoing them, adjusting them, etc, but the clicks and pops prevail.

  • by F. Carl McIvor1,

    F. Carl McIvor1 F. Carl McIvor1 Jul 23, 2011 9:22 AM in response to Blake Hodges
    Level 3 (510 points)
    Jul 23, 2011 9:22 AM in response to Blake Hodges

    Hi Blake

     

    Sometimes audio downloaded from the interenet and used in FC/iM projects have unexplained clicks & pops. Other times it's because the audi has not been resampled to 48 kHz.  So check the source of your audio to see if you can find a better source and or resample the audio to 48 kHz.  You can use MPEG Streamclip for this or QT PRO.  IF the problem persists, let use know.  Perhaps others will chime in with some other possible solutions for you.

     

    Cheers

     

    Carl

  • by Pancenter,

    Pancenter Pancenter Jul 23, 2011 10:44 AM in response to Blake Hodges
    Level 6 (9,928 points)
    Audio
    Jul 23, 2011 10:44 AM in response to Blake Hodges

    Do the clicks & pops always come at the same place?

     

    I gather from your posts... yes.

     

    Are they coming at places where you've made cuts or just where you've made audio eq adjustments.

     

    I'm an audio guy not a FCPX user, just curious.

     

    pancenter-

  • by Blake Hodges,

    Blake Hodges Blake Hodges Jul 23, 2011 11:29 AM in response to Pancenter
    Level 1 (19 points)
    Jul 23, 2011 11:29 AM in response to Pancenter

    @F. Carl : The audio is original files recorded from a Panasonic HVX200 during shooting. 48k audio import, 48k export. I don't think there was any conversion there.

     

    @Pancenter: Yes, clicks and pops are at the exact same place. They are not on edits. There are slight adjustments to the EQ, but it is to the whole clip, and not just where the pops occur.

     

    I think it has something to do with a sort-of "Render file" FCPx creates when you edit the sound of a given audio clip..... but I dunno.

  • by mjcollinge,

    mjcollinge mjcollinge Jul 23, 2011 3:49 PM in response to Blake Hodges
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Jul 23, 2011 3:49 PM in response to Blake Hodges

    I'm experiencing something similar, only its with audio I've added (audio attached to the video is fine).  Tracks that I insert from audio browser (FCP and iLife collections, as well as iTunes) sound terrible in the rendered project. The defect is hard to describe, but very easy to detect.  I've uploaded a quick example, its especially apparent starting at about 00:19.

     

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeLWOPOSESc

     

    ~max

  • by Pancenter,

    Pancenter Pancenter Jul 23, 2011 4:48 PM in response to mjcollinge
    Level 6 (9,928 points)
    Audio
    Jul 23, 2011 4:48 PM in response to mjcollinge

    mjcollinge...

     

    Wow, that's bad. From an audio perspective, it sounds like an exaggerated digital sync problem.

     

    This used to happen when audio was transferred from one digital medium to another, and some had forgotten to lock the digital clock sync.

     

    It also happens when:

     

    Trying to fit an audio clip of a certain length  (say 30 seconds) into smaller or larger time frame without changing the pitch of the file. Unless a top notch algorithm is used, artifacts are produced.

     

    pancenter-

  • by mjcollinge,

    mjcollinge mjcollinge Jul 23, 2011 7:43 PM in response to Blake Hodges
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Jul 23, 2011 7:43 PM in response to Blake Hodges

    So I've tried a few things:

     

    ~ Rendered a video with just a still image with no other audio but a song selected from the iLife collection

    ~ Exported just the audio as a few different formats

     

    The result is always the same, crappy audio.

     

    Other postings are pointing to Lion as the culprate...

  • by Chris Beiting,

    Chris Beiting Chris Beiting Jul 25, 2011 1:21 PM in response to mjcollinge
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 25, 2011 1:21 PM in response to mjcollinge

    I'm getting them as well. Didn't notice it until after I rendered my final project out. Not cool.

  • by RaycerXray,

    RaycerXray RaycerXray Jul 25, 2011 8:34 PM in response to Chris Beiting
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Jul 25, 2011 8:34 PM in response to Chris Beiting

    I've been getting these, as well. I'm also finding that Apple's built in sound files are very prone to this. I've been resaving the audio files as aiff and that seems to fix the problem. I'm wondering if this another bug brought about by an upgrade to Lion.

     

    I've been encountering a number of strange Final Cut X bugs since upgrading to Lion. You'd think Apple would have vetted a brand new program like FCP X better since it's release was close to Lion. Very sloppy work, Apple.

  • by mjcollinge76,

    mjcollinge76 mjcollinge76 Jul 26, 2011 8:13 PM in response to Blake Hodges
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 26, 2011 8:13 PM in response to Blake Hodges

    So it certainly is Lion that is the root of the problem.  I went back to SL and the mysterious clicks and pops are not present in the same project.

     

    For those having the same issue, did you install FCP onto SL and then upgrade to Lion?

     

    Anyone having this sound issue with FCP that was installed AFTER udating to Lion?

  • by mlegge,

    mlegge mlegge Jul 26, 2011 9:09 PM in response to Blake Hodges
    Level 1 (4 points)
    iWork
    Jul 26, 2011 9:09 PM in response to Blake Hodges

    Yes! Ever since I installed Lion, my video exports out of Final Cut Pro X have clicks and stutters. Prior to that,  the exporting was fine.  It's got to be Lion.  I tested some footage through iMovie and it did not have audio problems with the same footage.  Why one and the not the other?

  • by iby-video,

    iby-video iby-video Jul 27, 2011 12:27 AM in response to mjcollinge76
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 27, 2011 12:27 AM in response to mjcollinge76

    Yes, same problem. I don't really now what to do now.

  • by djoliverm,

    djoliverm djoliverm Jul 27, 2011 1:26 AM in response to iby-video
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 27, 2011 1:26 AM in response to iby-video

    I'm having the SAME EXACT ISSUE! Been driving me crazy! I had FCPX on SL, then upgraded to Lion a few days ago and it's been hit or miss with the renders. Some of them render properly, some clips sound fine inside FCPX and then render incorrectly, and some are fine until FCPX decides to analyze the clips and then it introduces all the clicks and pops which are then clearly audible inside of FCPX. I've done transcoding on clips that have come out OK in Compressor and they seem to come out fine. I'm not quite sure if there is any work around for those of us who have FCPX and Lion...

     

    P.S. A lot of people are talking about importing everything as .AIFF and all this stuff, well, how hard can it be to handle MP3s or Waves? I used Waves for all of the audio and they were perfectly fine until Lion, so this stuff about .AIFF just doesn't seem like a good solution. I'm going to try to create a random track and import stuff as .AIFF and other as .MP3 and .WAV and see what happens. It'd be curious to see if the cracks appear in some parts and not in others (for me they appear so long as there is audio, but stops in between the clips where i've put a 1 second silence)...

     

    Message was edited by: djoliverm

  • by Pancenter,

    Pancenter Pancenter Jul 27, 2011 3:36 AM in response to djoliverm
    Level 6 (9,928 points)
    Audio
    Jul 27, 2011 3:36 AM in response to djoliverm

    WAV and AIFF are both uncompressed audio and should behave the same.

     

    Most of the other formats are compressed audio and require a few processor cycles to decompress and play on the fly... but since renders are not real-time tasks there -should- be no problem in dealing with most types of audio, compressed or not.

     

    Send Feedback to Apple.

     

    pancenter-

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