Hello again! Another Newbie problem I can’t figure out. I have annoying clicks showing up in my audiobook recordings and I cannot isolate a cause. Here is background and what equipment I am using.
Started out with a Windows 10, older model laptop. Have a Samson Q9U XLR Dynamic mic that is basically new. Setup is in closet, with large blanket, over dooorway, with no computers, clocks, phone nearby. I turn off all fans, ac/heaters etc while recording.
Noticed after beginning to edit a 10-minute segment that I could hear a faint click every so often, but very faint. However, once I did full effects, the noise was much louder and a real distraction to listeners. Had someone tell me it was probably a bad hard drive (the click sounds very mechanical) so since my computer was on it’s last legs I got a new HP Pavillion, with Windows 11. Same thing happened.
Was told it might be my mic setup. Did test with using Samson mic, and computer mic in same room. Got clicks in both tests. Also, did test with computer mic in my office on the other side of my “studio” setup (no Samson mic near) . . . same clicks, so don’t think it is Mic setup.
The biggest problem is not the click sound during pasuses, which are easy to edit out, but the ones that happen in the middle or at the end of a word are problematic. It has taken me 20-30 minutes to isolate and eliminate some of these clicks and it is just not feasible to do long-term. Looking to find the cause of the click and eliminate that. Any thoughts?
Make a silent recording (no talking) that you know has ticks in it. Export it as a WAV file on your local drive. Open it in Audacity and cut it so there’s a tick in the middle of a 10 second segment. Export as WAV and post it on the forum.
The upload icon is in the text window. It’s the heavy bar with up arrow.
Do Not apply any filters, effects, mods, or corrections. Clean sample.
Thanks for your willingness to help. I have attached a WAV file audio of a 10-second clip with no speaking and no effects . . . just raw recording. I can't hear anything on the clip. I also attached a screenshot of the raw file showing no Wav Form at all and the same file normalized . . . and that is when I hear and you can see the click at the 5-second mark.
When doing a speaking file it is often the same, where I cannot hear or see the click until I have applied effects. Thanks!
Lots of information in a small package. Most of the noise is wood-cutting buzz-saw noises. Since you probably don’t live next to a commercial saw mill, I suspect the electronics is doing that. Condenser Microphone is for advertising only because neither 48 volts nor 12 volts is available to run it. The label on the box claims 10 volts which may not be perfect for good quality voice work.
But the more fascinating noise is the leaking sink. I’m not kidding. There are dripping sink noises all throughout the clip. The objectionable noise at 5 second is one Plunk of water louder than all the others. That’s probably where the timing is coming from, too.
Plunk
Plunk
Plunk
So fix the leaking sink and several noises may go away.
Thanks for the info. The recording I sent was just a test of my computer as I thought the click was mechanical. My setup for normal recording has a Samson Q9U mic. I am puzzled about the water as the recording was not too close to a bathroom or kitchen, however there may be pipes under the house I suppose. Will look for a leak of some kind. When I get a chance I will find a quiet place outside away from any water source and I'll post a clip to see if we get the same result. Thank you taking the time to help with this.
In general, the background noise for a microphone is supposed to be spring rain in the trees (fffffff). White or Pink Noise. That’s the atomic noise that electronics makes just sitting there running. That’s why sound mixers or consoles always call out the type of electronics they have. Sometimes this noise can be the same volume as your voice. Microphone voice is not very loud.
If you can identify a noise, that is usually a design problem. A famous one is screaming mosquitoes which is what happens when the data and the voice cross into each other in a USB microphone.
I’m not sure where buzz saw sound comes from. That could be a data leak.
Do you hear that water gurgling back there? That’s right out of a wash basin.
If you don’t connect anything to an audio input, it turns into an antenna and it can pick up everything from fluorescent lights to high tension wires. There’s a servicing trick where you shield an audio cable while you’re measuring the system. Much better idea what the real noise is.
I have an audio connector that’s “fake”. There is no microphone. It’s job is to simulate a microphone without actually contributing any noise, and to shield the wires from environment trash.
Yes, my computer is making those noises from using the laptop mic. The other mic is on the other side of the house! And, this keeps getting weirder all the time. This afternoon, I took both my old Dell Inspiron and the brand new HP Pavillion with me in the car and drove to very secluded, quiet road. Turned them both on at basically the same time and recorded about 60 seconds of dead silence. Both computers were using their own laptop mics, no Samson mic with me. No water anywhere close.
I have isolated the same 10-second clip from both recordings and get a similar noise at the 5-second mark of both. But, on the recording of my old Dell computer is the "Click" sound that led me down this path in the first place. You can hear it has a different sound . . . at least I can when I normalize on my end. These two clips below are the raw recordings before I normalized. Makes me think I should return the HP and try to figure out the click at the 2-second mark of the Dell. Do both have the water sound on your equipment? Thanks!
This is an easier to read version of my answer: Yes, my computer is making those noises from using the laptop mic. The other mic is on the other side of the house! And, this keeps getting weirder all the time. This afternoon, I took both my old Dell Inspiron and the brand new HP Pavillion with me in the car and drove to very secluded, quiet road. Turned them both on at basically the same time and recorded about 60 seconds of dead silence. Both computers were using their own laptop mics, no Samson mic with me. No water anywhere close.
I have isolated the same 10-second clip from both recordings and get a similar noise at the 5-second mark of both. But, on the recording of my old Dell computer is the "Click" sound that led me down this path in the first place. You can hear it has a different sound . . . at least I can when I normalize on my end. These two clips below are the raw recordings before I normalized. Makes me think I should return the HP and try to figure out the click at the 2-second mark of the Dell. Do both have the water sound on your equipment? Thanks!
