Clickity Click

O

Orson

Well-known member
In studio there are two monitor screens. One to read off and one for reaper.

On recordings there are occasional clicks which after lots of isolating was put down to one Ben* monitor. So a quick trip to shop for another monitor replacement.

This Len*v* monitor does same and clicks even more which means more editing of voice recordings.

The Ace* monitor doesn't click which is in recording booth as well but couldn't get an Ace* that day.

It is like a static 'tick'. Easily identifiable but a pain if it comes in the middle of a word.

Is clicking normal and why do they click?
 
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I suspect a 'ground/earth/hum' loop. Do you have active monitor speakers? If they use a 3 pin, i.e. earth power cable then that could be a cause. Such speakers can be isolated from signal earth by removing the grounds from both audio cables one end.
NEVER, EVER REMOVE ANY MAINS POWER EARTHS!

Monitor screens can be powered either directly, with an IEC power cable or from a mains to DC power 'line lump'. The latter CAN be isolated from mains earth or not depending on type. I bet the Acer is one such. If buying another screen take a meter with you to check that the PSU does NOT take mains earth through to the DC side.

Dave.
 
Hmmm.......very strange of course. I sort of think Dave might be onto something but do the monitors run on a power supply or a direct plug? Is this problem new? Have you made any changes to the system recently? I'd do the ground check on the outlet(s) for sure.

2 cents worth of.....let us know what this was. I'm curious.

Mick
 
Dave no this is a brand new wired and tested build. The whole building.

My set up is ....mains 3 pin plug ......to monitor. It is not an electrical 'tick' on the circuit. This 'tick' is being picked up by the mic in the sound booth where the two monitors are approx 2 to 3 feet from the mic.

(Sorry I edited this because in the sound booth both monitors are into the mains via an extention lead.)

I did massive tests to isolate this the other weekend and identified it as just the one Ben* monitor. But the new install Len*v* is doing same.
 
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I tested for circuit electrical 'ticks' by removing mics and sitting for ages watching Reaper and nothing.

I have tried two different mics and removed anything that could cause this one by one. Thats how I got it down to the first Ben* monitor.

To be fair this Len*v* monitor was only 90.00 euro :o from a high street store.
 
Well thanks Orson! Would have saved me a lot of verbiage had you told me it was an ACOUSTIC tick!
Heh, no matter. I have two further ideas.
1) can you beg or borrow a portable recorder such as one of the Zooms or Tascams? Set that up to record and if no tick that shows that somehow (but no f'ng clue how!) a pulse is being induced into the mic cable.
2) This is a mechanical noise due to thermal cycling of the monitor casing?

Oh! And a clip of tick would be handy (attached 320k MP3 please)

Dave.
 
I've never had a monitor make any kind of sound apart from those that have a relay disconnect - and that just at power up/power down
 
The test I did last weekend was to remove each item from the sound booth one by one.

Turn off anything electrical in booth except for the 2 monitors.

Remove the mic with the audient system and reaper still running.

Change the main mic 103 for the second a NT1A.

Then only 2 things it could be......the monitors.

I removed the Ben* and no tick.

It has drove me insane and this took hours to do.
 
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Here is the tick isolated with other studio noise taken from a recording. It is a very precise click that is totally different to any other mouth noise or whatever. Easily identifyable on the recordings. This one was in between speech so I picked it out. I will get another on my zoom in an hour.
 

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I just left the zoom in there recording for over 15 minutes. Both monitors on and the pc fired up so a signal to the monitors. It recorded nothing.

Last week both mics recorded this tick. But there was no tick when the mics were not plugged in. This means possibly there is a tick coming from the mics when they are plugged in. Also it may not be a recorded noise but something else.

The set up is........mics on boom arm in booth ..................back to dbx 286...................then out to Audient 14...........then to pc and also out to a mixer with a desk mic to talk to booth. All of this goes to an ups ................then to a surge protector plugged into mains.
 
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Here is the tick. You can see it is very precise.
 

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Have you tried this without the surge suppressor? Your mention of the surge protector reminded me of a similar situation a few years ago.

We were in the final stages of mastering for a flute, viola and harp recording when we started getting a random 'tick' on playback. Tick would appear in different places, even if playing the same track back repeatedly, so it had to be external to the recording itself. We KNEW our source recordings had not a whiff of clip, but checked them out anyway to confirm this. The tick drove me nuts for half a day until the culprit was identified: a 'smart' power strip, provided by our power company, which had surge suppression and a sensor which turned all slave outlets on/off based on draw from the master(sensor) outlet. The amplifiers were powered via this strip, which was the source of the tick.

The tick disappeared immediately upon swapping the smart strip for a stupid one. Imagine the sense of relief.



~d
 
Orson said:
Here is the tick isolated with other studio noise taken from a recording. It is a very precise click that is totally different to any other mouth noise or whatever. Easily identifyable on the recordings. This one was in between speech so I picked it out. I will get another on my zoom in an hour.
Click to expand...
Why can I not save this attachment in 'Downloads' as I have done for several years?

Dave.
 
It worked OK for me Dave - and it does, when normalised sound like a static discharge or a capacitor dumping. I think the idea to try it without the DBX might sort it out. I'd got the idea the monitor itself was 'ticking' as in the mic heard it and recorded it but you could hear the tick too? I misunderstood. Clicks are usually quite obvious when you look at them. Digital ones are one or two samples of near FS, that then vanish immediately, while analogue ones ramp up, and the decay over a few or lot of samples.
 
Why would the static keep building up every few minutes Rob. Though the booth building is timber covered in foam with panels and a carpet floor.

Regards static. I always get that off lots of things but never in booth.
 
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