Clicking Noise in my audiobook recordings

Audacity Help Forum macOS
1



Hi.

I’m working on my first Audiobook Which is exciting (and a bit daunting!).
Im hoping somebody here can help me.
Im having trouble with clicking noises in the audio which are not made by my voice or my environment. Sometimes they appear where I’ve done an edit but sometimes they seem to arrive randomly. Im not sure why or how they are there. Ive been trying to edit them out but Im sure there must be a better way!
Ive attached a short file with an example of one of the clicks.

Im using a MacBook with MacOS Catalina 10.15.6.
Im using Audacity 2.4.2.
The microphone Im using is an Apogee MiC 96K which has a USB cable. as the computer doesn’t take normal USBs i have an adaptor from USB to USB type C going into the MacBook.

Thank you!

2

I can’t hear the click. Where is it?
– Bill

3

I can’t either. Does it still make noise if you play the clip on something other than your computer?

There’s a test process, too. If you hear a click, does it happen in exactly the same place every time you play it?

Nice voice.

Koz

4

That tiny thing at 5.4 seconds?
The thing at 2.2 seconds sounds like lip smacks. I am plagued with those.

Koz

5

Your voice as recorded is really tiny. It should be possible to boost your live voice so that an occasional blue peak gets close to half-way up.

If you’re viewing the bouncing sound meter, it should bounce up to about -6dB to -10dB.

If you can make your voice louder, it’s possible nobody will hear the clicks any more.

Koz

6

I finished the new screen example. A voice performance should look something like this. The bouncing sound meter occasionally tries to turn yellow from green and the blue waves approach half-way tall. Nobody hits this exactly, but getting close is good.

This is the sound file you posted.

Screen Shot 2020-11-17 at 4.28.17 PM.png
It should ideally be louder with taller blue waves as in the example.

All microphone systems make noises. It’s our job to make the show (voice) loud enough so nobody notices them, but not so loud that it creates distortion.

Koz

7

I can’t get the instructions to tell me what that knob on the right side does. It could be show volume or it could be headphone volume.

I think the little light on the front tells me a bunch of stuff and I’ll find out what stuff shortly.

I do note that the microphone comes with a version of ASIO4ALL software. Audacity doesn’t support ASIO in any form. so you will be using simple Windows services for everything. That may be one of the reasons your volume is low.

As we go.

Koz

8

There’s a note that buffer settings can cause snaps and pops. Audacity has a buffer setting.

Audacity > Edit > Preferences > Devices > Latency > Buffer Length > OK. Write down where it is now and change it by a big jump. See if the snapping gets better or worse.

Still no idea what the light does.

Koz

9

Getting there. The volume control on the right-hand side controls your voice volume. Advance it and see if it doesn’t make the Audacity blue waves taller.

Koz

10

The light on the front turns blue when the microphone is plugged in correctly. It turns green when the sound services are talking to each other. I was hoping for a multicolor light that can tell you your voice volume. I think one of the other Apogee microphones can do that.

So that’s it. As much as I can tell from the instructions. Change the Audacity Buffer and see if that doesn’t help your snapping noises.

Koz

11

Thank you. So much for all of this!
I’ll try it all today.

12

Sorry about the wandering, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen instructions that went into such amazing detail and didn’t tell me basics. It’s like they were written by the software developers and not the microphone designers.

Anyway, see if that helps. Two of the forum elves missed the noises completely the first listen and if you just made the voice louder, that may be enough.

Koz