Podcast improvement and removing clicks

Hello,

We are encountering a problem with clicks during the podcast that I can’t remove as they are audible during the talk. I tried several methods that people recommend online to no avail.

Can someone advise me how can I remove those clicks without ruining the audio and also through in ideas why these clicks actually generate?

I am attaching a test audio with the clicks.


Much appreciated. Have a nice day.

Nodi

The clicks can be repaired with the Repair effect (Repair - Audacity Manual), but this can only repair one click at a time, so if there’s a lot of clicks it’ll take forever.

Here I’ve used the Repair tool on the three most obvious clicks:

How are you recording? What equipment are you using?
Full size computer or a laptop?

How are you recording? What equipment are you using?
Full size computer or a laptop?

Just that.

A majority of problems like this are caused by you using a computer. They are not audio recorders. They are general purpose computing machines and could, at any time, decide they have something more important to do than record your voice. Or worse, they are hosting a task that decides it’s more important than you are. Skype comes to mind.

So as a fuzzy magic wand, clean shut down the machine with Shift-Shutdown. When you start it, don’t let anything else start. I used to get one of the managers at work out of trouble by simply closing all the billions of applications he left running in the background while he worked.

If your podcast is between geographically separated performers, that’s a serious problem because chats and communications are difficult to capture as a recording. At work I used to do it with a separate computer.

Koz

Guys hi,

Thanks a lot for your comments. I will try using repair function. We are recording using a laptop with Rode NT-USB mic. I cant seem to figure out what is the best way to set up its knobs to make sure clicks are not arising. For example, using high mic level and low volume or other combination to prevent it picking up clicks.

Any advice?

I have been using Audacity and very happy with the quality of the audio I am getting apart from clicks.


Thanks a lot,


Nodi

Try taking the kit to another location (preferably a different building) and make some test recordings. That could confirm or rule out the possibility of the clicks being caused by environmental interference.

I’ve used this de-clicker plugin on it …

suggested settings.png

The clicks could be occurring in their mouth : wet mouth noises.

Thank you!


There is one big beep during the cleaned audio. What is it?

Have a nice day.

Nodira

The beep separates the before from the after.

Hello Trebor,

MANY MANY thanks for your help with the de-clicker and de-esser. I followed your advice and did the clean. I attached a cleaned version. It is much much cleaner, but I still hear some audible mouth clicks. Do you know how can I further improve it? I tried to reapply the effects, but it did not help much.

Everyone, thanks a lot for all your generous help.

Nodi

Another pass with different DeClicker settings is required to detect&remove other clicks …

other settings.png

Thanks a lot!