Clicks (pops) left when I delete audio or apply an effect

I was surprised to find clicks / pops left when I delete a section of audio. I can’t find any posts about this problem but it can’t be OK, so I assume I’ve done something wrong.

I am using Audacity 3.1.2 (installed as appimage) on Kubuntu 20.04 - but I’ve also found the same issue with Audacity 3.0.3 installed on Windows. I’m using it to edit voice recordings made in a sound-treated home studio with a Rode NT1-A XLR microphone through a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 audio interface. Making the recordings with Audacity is working fine.

I need to edit the resulting files to remove coughs and repetitions.

However … using Del to delete results in an audible click or pop at the deletion point. Using Ctrl-L “silence audio” results in clicks at the beginning and end of the selection, and so does applying an effect like Amplify with a negative dB value.

It doesn’t show up on the waveform but it does clearly on the spectrogram - screenshot attached, if I have permissions to do that

I don’t know where I should be looking to prevent this from happening. Different sampling rates? I’m recording mono at 44.1 kHz. Different project options? Different tools?

Thanks!

Making edits at zero crossing points can help avoid clicks (see: https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/select_menu_at_zero_crossings.html), but generally it is best to try and make edits during silences whenever possible.

I will try the zero-crossing advice, thanks.

By “during silences” do you mean relative quiet or absolute silence? I’m already selecting quiet points. There is no absolute silence due to self-noise in the system even though that’s pretty good with this hardware.

Well, I’ve done a few points selecting carefully at zero crossings - and it’s much better! Thank you.

(Why didn’t I know about this before? :smiley: )