Digital Clicks in Playback / Mixdown

Hi ginganinja13


The only time I get click and pops is if my buffer setting is too low for the mixdown phase. Have you checked that? I sometimes forget to change it after tracking.

~delton

Wow, thats pretty tough. I would swap the left and right output cable from your interface to eliminate a cable. This happened to me about a year ago, really scratching my head as to why a had a little crackling in one speaker. Flipped cables around, replaced the bad one and no more problems.

Good luck!

~delton

What plugins are you using on the regions (or tracks) that cause the clicks?

pancenter-

I'm BY NO MEANS A PRO, as a sound engineer I'm a rank amateur, however I have been studying using macprovideo.com video lessons as my reference point. In one of the classes they talk about wave forms and clearly state that the shape of the wave is actually the way the wave moves your speaker to create sound. And if the wave is not smooth and has an abrupt change or break it will result in a click or pop out of the speakers because your speakers will try to physically move in or out in accordance with the wave. If your wave is squared or broken I think that's your answer. You need to repair the sound wave somehow or remove it. Unfortunately I'm not UP on the subject enough to be able to tell you how to repair the wave BUTTTTTTT you could learn how through macprovideo.com if you're interested in joining the club or buying some of their lessons. Personally I think it's a wonderful resourse. Since joining I haven't had to post many questions to this forum because i can find my answers in their materials. Of course unlike this forum membership isn't free so it's now always an easy decision if money is tight.

Good luck!

BTW I'm not affiliated with macprovideo.com in any way shape or form, I'm just a member.

So I'm to understand that these clicks and pops are actually physically manifesting in the audio you are bouncing out of Logic, it's not just playback glitching that you hear but is not actually present in the recorded audio?

I've had a similar problem to this in some random Logic projects in the past. Another symptom was that there would be an audible pop every time I hit play or stop, kind of like some weird sort of DC offset. From memory, I think it might have eliminated the problem via finding an audio unit plug in that was the culprit (a PSP one), but I could be hallucinating and mixing that up with some other problem.. it was quite a while ago.

Things you can try are: remove temporarily any suspicious plug ins, one by one, and see if by doing that you eliminate the problem. Start off with any plugs you may have on the master output channel(s) and auxes.

Also, test some of your other Logic projects.. is this behaviour happening all the time with all projects, or just this one? If it's only currently affecting this project, you might want to try using the new selective track import function to create a brand new project and import all your tracks from the problem project into it. Don't create this new project from an existing custom template you may be used to using - especially if that template was a Logic 8 one. Build a new template starting from a clean Logic 9 slate, then import your tracks to it and see what happens.

ginganinja13 wrote:
Here's 2 images of the clicks, as viewed in Soundtrack Pro. Obviously digital in nature, you can clearly see the waveform interrupted and squared. As for plug ins, it happens across various tracks, some with plugins (most likely compressor, EQ, exciter), however, some with no plugins at all on the track.

Hopefully the images will work for you all *fingers crossed*

Hi Matt, oh yeah... can't miss those.

I notice you have two different taglines, one listing the Intel Mac Pro and the other a G5. Have you tried the Fireface 400 on the G5, do you have the same problems.

RME has had some problems with the Firewire chips used on some of the Intel machines, digital glitching is one of the symptoms. Since you're not driving the RME with external clock (are you?) I'd head on over to the RME site and see what you can find out.

Do you know the manufacturer of the Firewire chip on board?

pancenter-

I'm just learning but to answer the 1st part of your question ... from what I understand if a waveform is broken or fouled up it will result in a popping or clicking sound because your speakers are trying to physically reproduce the broken or messed up waveform.

This is my understanding. Again I'm just learning and studying but this is my understanding in regard to what broken waveforms can do to your recordings. AND I'm SURE there are many other things that can add noise and popping to a recording. But considering in this particular case the monitor shots show broken waveforms I'd guess the broken waveform is causing the clicks and pops.