Clicking/popping sounds. Help please.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Greythunder
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Greythunder

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I use Pro Tools 8.0.4 LE and an Mbox 3 Mini on a Windows 7 laptop.

No matter if I am recording or not, loud and disruptive clicking/popping sounds occur randomly, usually 7 to 10 quickly in a row. This is stopping me from using Pro Tools at all. Can anyone help me figure this issue out? One thing I have heard that could cause this is a slow Hard Drive (My current one is only 5400 RPM), but I'm not completely sure that's what it is. Please help me out here. Thanks.
 
Is this something that just started out of the blue, or has the setup never worked properly?

Use google to find out how to delete pro tools preferences.

This has been known to solve the problem in the past.
 
Steenamaroo said:
Is this something that just started out of the blue, or has the setup never worked properly?

Use google to find out how to delete pro tools preferences.

This has been known to solve the problem in the past.
Click to expand...

Since installation on this laptop it has had this issue. I will try to do as you said a bit later and post results. Thanks!
 
ok,cool.
Also worth taking a look at your buffer settings in protools, and making sure your interface drivers are up to date.

If you don't know,
Big buffer number = smooth playback + high latency.
small buffer = low latency but clicks pops and glitches (generally speaking).

Hope that helps.
 
Steenamaroo said:
ok,cool.
Also worth taking a look at your buffer settings in protools, and making sure your interface drivers are up to date.

If you don't know,
Big buffer number = smooth playback + high latency.
small buffer = low latency but clicks pops and glitches (generally speaking).

Hope that helps.
Click to expand...

I tried changing my buffer size both larger and smaller and nothing was fixed. It is automatically set at 512, by the way.

Also, I did what you said about deleting the preferences, and although it did help a lot, it didn't completely stop the popping sounds. When there used to be whole sets of 7 or so now and again, there is now only 1 or 2. So, it's way better, but still very annoying and it still stops me from being able to record a track that sounds good.

I also did everything I could to optimize Pro Tools performance on my computer and that did nothing. I don't know how to check my interface drivers, though. How would I check that, and if they aren't up to date, what would I do about it?

So, if that doesn't happen to be the issue, could this be a hard drive issue? Could a hard drive that runs at less than 7200 RPM cause pops and clicks?
 
Last edited:
to be honest, i doubt that the hard drive is the problem.
I ran my old 5400rpm drive to its limits, and it would either play perfectly, or it would stop dead and give me an error message about not getting audio from the drive fast enough.

It's always a possibility though, so if you can, try recording a session on an external usb drive, just for testing purposes.


you can see if you drivers are up to date my visiting avid.com and searching for the most recent version.

The fact that clearing your preferences helped makes me think that it's a software issue. Have you tried completely uninstalling protools, restarting, the reinstalling?
 
Steenamaroo said:
to be honest, i doubt that the hard drive is the problem.
I ran my old 5400rpm drive to its limits, and it would either play perfectly, or it would stop dead and give me an error message about not getting audio from the drive fast enough.

It's always a possibility though, so if you can, try recording a session on an external usb drive, just for testing purposes.


you can see if you drivers are up to date my visiting avid.com and searching for the most recent version.

The fact that clearing your preferences helped makes me think that it's a software issue. Have you tried completely uninstalling protools, restarting, the reinstalling?
Click to expand...

The driver was the issue. I was at version 1.0.4 for some reason, when I needed to have 1.0.6, so I downloaded that and it worked perfectly. I went a minute and 30 seconds with not even a single click, so it seems that the problem has been fixed. Thank you SO much for the help!
 
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