Audacity Forum

This has never happened to me before - but I am now getting a click at each edit point. It's strange - the clicks do not show up on the waveform but are very clear and loud on playback. Any suggestions?

Simon Anza

Just because I can't think of anything else to do, export a small segment with clicks in it as a WAV file. ClickTest.wav. Close everything. Open Audacity fresh and open ClickTest.wav. Does it still click and can you see them now?

Koz

What kind of edits are you doing? That makes a big difference.

If you're just amplifying then you might have a DC offset problem. Before making any edits to your next track, use the Normalize effect to remove any DC offset first and see if the problem goes away.

Also, it will help us a lot if you could upload a short clip with one of these clicks.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I am doing a rough edit for a radio documentary for the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) on the Spirit Children of Africa (kids accused of being witches and are murdered as a consequence).

I am not amplifying the clips and I have not normalized the source tape.

For the rough edit I am highlighting a section of irrelevant tape and just hitting the Delete key (this is probably a bad thing to do).

I am attaching a short sequence; the clicks may be a little hard to hear on account of the noice of the vehicle we're driving in. But the engineers at CBC are sure to complain!

Many thanks for listening. The section of tape was recorded in northern Ghana on the border with Burkina Faso. Please excuse the harsh edit at the end. It will be fixed!

oops! your upload tool will not authorize either the .wav or .mp3 extensions! I'd be happy to email it to anyone who wants to listen (it's a 25 sec. clip)


Simanza

Simanza wrote:For the rough edit I am highlighting a section of irrelevant tape and just hitting the Delete key (this is probably a bad thing to do). Simanza

Yes, I suspect that this is likely to be your problem. If you just do a simple delete then you are extremely likely to create a disjoint waveform - which will play as a click. If you zoom in on the point where you make such an edit (zoom in until you can see the individual sample points marked) you should be able to see what I mean.

You can corrrect this manually in 1.2.x by using the pencil tool to redraw a smooth waveform. Version 1.3 makes the task easier as the developers have kindly introduced a "Repair" effect which will fix up to 128 selected samples by interpolating from the waveforms on either side.

WC

If the program had an "I" and an "O" key (In and Out) like the video people do, you could zoom into each edit and make sure you selected a zero crossing point.

Are the programmers listening?

Koz

Simanza wrote:Thanks for all the suggestions. I am doing a rough edit for a radio documentary for the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) on the Spirit Children of Africa (kids accused of being witches and are murdered as a consequence).

Ugh, for some reason I was under the impression that that practice had died out. When will people ever learn that they need to look objectively at their beliefs and maybe (just maybe) stop using them as a justification for killing people?

Seriously people, magic doesn't exist.

Waxcylinder is right, and that Repair tool in the Beta version might be just the ticket. But if it isn't, then your job is going to be annoying. You'll need to fade out 10 milliseconds before a cut and fade in 10 milliseconds after a cut. Koz was right about the reasoning behind your clicks, and if the Repair tool doesn't work then your only other option is the fade in/out technique I just described.

Good luck with your project, the BBC does good work in general.

<<<the BBC does good work in general.>>>

I agree. So does the CBC who actually commissioned the work.

Koz

Er......

My mistake.

*resists desire to edit post and then ask Koz what he's talking about*

Hope this doesn't offend this forum's protocol, but I am re-posting this thread from the "zero-crossing point" because I am so frustrated by this clicking - and am much in need of some help.

I am still getting these clicks at each edit point. These clicks do not show up on the waveform - not even when I zoom in to the finest detail. They are somewhat more obtrusive when I use the <delete> key instead of ctrl-x. But they are still there.

I have saved and closed the project and re-opened it to see if the clicks are an artifact of having the project unsaved; they remain.

I have exported the project both as .wav and .mp3 files and then opened the project in another computer; same thing.

I tried opening it in 1.3 - clicks are still there. I'd love to share you a section but the forum will not allow me to upload either .wav or mp3 files.

Any suggestions?

Simanza