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 yoch3,

    yoch3 yoch3 Nov 27, 2011 2:53 PM in response to Blake Hodges
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 27, 2011 2:53 PM in response to Blake Hodges

    It is clearly FCPX - the same files sound great and clear when rendered in FC7 and have scratchy clicks and pops when exported by FCPX.  If they cannot fix this, the program is useless for anything with audio.  I have tested it on many different types of content.  The problem is always the same.  Very sad.  If any of you have an answer to this, that would be a big help.

  • by Tom Wolsky,

    Tom Wolsky Tom Wolsky Nov 27, 2011 3:50 PM in response to yoch3
    Level 10 (118,348 points)
    Apple TV
    Nov 27, 2011 3:50 PM in response to yoch3

    Why don't you actually say what the specs of the audio are? Compressed audio should never be used for production in any application. Ask the same question on the Studio forum and you'll get the same answer.

  • by djoliverm,

    djoliverm djoliverm Nov 28, 2011 7:47 AM in response to yoch3
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 28, 2011 7:47 AM in response to yoch3

    OK, so all of this has been fixed with the 10.0.1 update. You can use compressed audio to your heart's extent.

     

    And as for "professional" applications, sure if you have the choice of having compressed vs. uncompressed audio, you will always choose uncompressed. Just so happens that sometimes you don't have that choice if the material is already compressed (devices that record compressed audio no matter what). It'd be akin to shooting RAW vs. JPEG with a DSLR. RAW obviously is better, but some applications, like sports photography, mostly are shot as JPEG because you can have a higher burst rate because of the smaller file size. Not that it really relates to video, but say the iPhone, it will only record uncompressed audio if the frame rate is less than 30. So unless you're using an app like Filmic Pro, where you can select to record audio uncompressed at 24p for example, Apple's standard settings will record at 30p when possible and use compressed audio.

  • by Tom Wolsky,

    Tom Wolsky Tom Wolsky Nov 28, 2011 7:54 AM in response to djoliverm
    Level 10 (118,348 points)
    Apple TV
    Nov 28, 2011 7:54 AM in response to djoliverm

    Then you optimize the media when you import. Or use Compressor or Streamclip to convert your media to a production format.

  • by yoch3,

    yoch3 yoch3 Nov 29, 2011 8:43 AM in response to Tom Wolsky
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 29, 2011 8:43 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

    Dear Tom and djoliverm

     

    Thank you both for responding to my painfully green and silly question!  I have used streamclip at the beginning and compressor at the end to get great sounding content out of my FCPX project.  The value of understanding what one is doing when using powerful software helps get a good outcome.  Who knew?   Thanks again for taking the time to help steer me - and hopefully others reading these posts - off the rocks of using files with incorrect compression for the task at hand. 

  • by Pancenter,

    Pancenter Pancenter Nov 29, 2011 12:51 PM in response to yoch3
    Level 6 (9,998 points)
    Audio
    Nov 29, 2011 12:51 PM in response to yoch3

    If the program is not going to work with certain formats then they shouldn't be an option within said program. Apple encourages the use of compressed media. All of the standard audio files that Apple previously distributed as uncompressed .aiff format are now (as of the last year or two) being distributed as compressed audio. It's clearly the fault of FCPX and will probably be fixed in a future update, if it hasn't been already.

     

    Quality compressed audio is perfectly suited to the way most people are using FCPX.

     

    If it plays correctly in the program, then is should export/render correctly.

  • by djoliverm,

    djoliverm djoliverm Nov 29, 2011 1:00 PM in response to Pancenter
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 29, 2011 1:00 PM in response to Pancenter

    Guys, like I said before, all these issues have been fixed with 10.0.1 update. And yeah you're totally right about compressed audio.

  • by Tom Wolsky,

    Tom Wolsky Tom Wolsky Nov 29, 2011 1:50 PM in response to Pancenter
    Level 10 (118,348 points)
    Apple TV
    Nov 29, 2011 1:50 PM in response to Pancenter

    "All of the standard audio files that Apple previously distributed as uncompressed .aiff format are now (as of the last year or two) being distributed as compressed audio."

     

    Could you tell us what you're referring to and how this relates to video production applications.

  • by djoliverm,

    djoliverm djoliverm Nov 29, 2011 2:17 PM in response to Tom Wolsky
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 29, 2011 2:17 PM in response to Tom Wolsky

    He's probably referring to the iMovie and iLife sound effects (and any loops from Garage Band and Logic for that matter). They're .caf files, Core Audio Files, and usually use Apple's Losless Format (compressed). As per Wikipedia:

     

     

    "The Core Audio Format is a container for storing audio, developed by Apple Inc.. It is compatible with Mac OS X 10.4 and higher; Mac OS X 10.3 needs QuickTime 7 to be installed.

    Core Audio Format is designed to overcome limitations of older digital audio formats, including AIFF and WAV. Just like the QuickTime .mov container, a .caf container can contain many different audio formats, metadata tracks, and much more data. Not limited to a 4 GB file size like older digital audio formats, a single .caf file can theoretically save hundreds of years of recorded audio due to its use of 64-bit file offsets.

    Soundtrack Pro and Logic Studio use the .caf format extensively for their loop and sound effects library, particularly for surround-sound audio compressed with the Apple Lossless codec."

     

    So essentially if you wanted to use these files as sound beds or sound effects, since they're compressed, they could have had the issues on FCPX 10.0. Regardless 10.0.1 fixes these issues, and I myself never used these types of files under 10.0, so I can't say whether they caused problems or not, but all compressed audio files for me at least had caused problems under 10.0.

  • by chordboard,

    chordboard chordboard Dec 9, 2011 8:18 PM in response to Blake Hodges
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 9, 2011 8:18 PM in response to Blake Hodges

    Here is the answer:

    When I download a video from youtube, load it into FCPX, and keep the same audio track, it has gone through special treatment in the youtube encoding process, and is NOT salvageable when sending out from FCPX.  I need to replace the audio with the original audio track.  I use AIF at 48k.  The file is crisp and clean, and outputs nicely for reuploading to say, VIMEO. 

     

    Of course this only works if you have the original audio track.

    But the best thing to do is go 48k on the audio, and avoid using audio that has gone though a "youtube" squeeze.  Its only good for youtube, and is SHOT after you download these audio files.  FCP will not be able to eliminate the POPS from them.

  • by Pancenter,

    Pancenter Pancenter Dec 9, 2011 10:04 PM in response to djoliverm
    Level 6 (9,998 points)
    Audio
    Dec 9, 2011 10:04 PM in response to djoliverm

    djoliverm wrote:

     

    He's probably referring to the iMovie and iLife sound effects (and any loops from Garage Band and Logic for that matter). They're .caf files, Core Audio Files, and usually use Apple's Losless Format (compressed). As per Wikipedia:

     

     


    Thanks.. that's exactly what I was referring to.

    Apple distributes all audio related to Apple programs in a compressed format. They no longer use aif audio.

    It relates to video because these are the on disk audio files (efx, music beds...etc) the FCPX has access to.

     

    Like I said, if FCPX is going to have trouble with compressed audio or is not meant to use compressed audio, it shouldn't be able to "see" and load the files.

  • by Tom Wolsky,

    Tom Wolsky Tom Wolsky Dec 10, 2011 2:03 AM in response to Pancenter
    Level 10 (118,348 points)
    Apple TV
    Dec 10, 2011 2:03 AM in response to Pancenter

    You should use feedback to request those be excluded from FCP.

  • by DJLove,

    DJLove DJLove Dec 19, 2011 9:12 PM in response to Blake Hodges
    Level 1 (10 points)
    Dec 19, 2011 9:12 PM in response to Blake Hodges

    Yes, I too had this with FCP X 10.1. I read some work arounds about converting the offending files to MP3 etc. This seemed to work but very inconvienient and annoying as I was using a sound effect file from my old pal Soudtrack Pro, a file with a .caf extension.

     

    Anyway, updating to 10.0.2 did indeed fix the problem.

  • by arthur schopenhauer,

    arthur schopenhauer arthur schopenhauer Sep 8, 2014 12:08 AM in response to Blake Hodges
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Video
    Sep 8, 2014 12:08 AM in response to Blake Hodges

    the same issue with me in the year 2014 with 10.9.4. severe pops. fcpx became useless with this unreliability issue. anyone still having the problem?

  • by edglazer,

    edglazer edglazer Nov 15, 2014 9:21 PM in response to arthur schopenhauer
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Nov 15, 2014 9:21 PM in response to arthur schopenhauer

    I've noticed this popping problem recently on FCPX 10.1.3, OSX 10.9.5

    Doing a separate import of an mp3 audio track (converted from the original video clip) is a fix, but it is an annoyance. I'm pretty sure the clip in question had an mp3 audio format originally anyway.

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