signal noise is driving me crazy

[DMBd13]

i cant seem to figure out the source of the pops and clicks in my signal. they are so obvious that i cant even get an idea of how good/terrible my sound really is.

im tracking guitar using two spaced rode nt5's, one up by the 5th fret and one near the soundhole. im still kind of new at this crap can someone give me a hand before i smash everything in my basement?

[otobianki74]

could be a number of problems, pops and clicks makes me think a clocking error... what are you recording to? are you clocking externally?

is the guitar part you are recording clicky or poppy?

otz

[gurubuzz]

Light switches, Heaters, aircons and refrigerators on the same circuit as your gear?


Latency settings in your software?


Tongue piercing ? (no seriously)

Saliva ?

[DMBd13]

Originally Posted by otobianki74

could be a number of problems, pops and clicks makes me think a clocking error... what are you recording to? are you clocking externally?

is the guitar part you are recording clicky or poppy?

otz

im using an m audio fast track ultra 8R interface and clocking internally, and as far as the guitar part, its pretty standard stuff, fingerpicking and strumming, nothing that i can imagine would cause the noise in the signal.

[theblue1]

When you're recording on a computer and you've got a problem with pops and clicks the first place to look is buffer settings.

(Although a close runner up is clock issues, as noted -- and even if you're running standalone, it's possible for the interface to be in one sample rate mode and not automatically switch to an incoming signal that's at a different sample rate.)


Anyhow, back to buffer settings. You have hardware buffers that you can likely change the value for (likely in the drivers for the interface) and you also have a monitoring buffer setting in your DAW. Having either too small can result in glitching, crackling, popping, or dropouts. Sometimes when folks try to monitor through the CPU, they drop their latencies so low that the slightest slowdown in the complex operations of the host computer can cause problems.

Also, don't forget to check your computer's optimization. Maybe some new program was introduced that's been running in the background and sucking down CPU resources.