Clicks on a bass track

[cent73]

Hi,

A band tracked a couple of songs and just hired me to mix them. I actually have to do all the editing, bouncing, comping and what not so I quickly noticed there's something wrong with the bass line track. There's an awful lot of clicks throughout. I'm not concerned at the moment how they ended up there, 'cause I need to finish the mix. The signal wasn't too hot for sure. Whatever...

I need you, guys, to help me out here. How can I get rid of them, or just attenuate them as much as possible? Any tools, plugins?

Check the link, please. This is a raw line track, no EQing, no nothing.

Any help would be appreciated!

 

[Seth Munson]

I would say cut the clicks out and stretch the parts together and crossfade.
Works for me when bands send me shit like this.

 

[arv_foh]

Izotope RX Declicker

 

[Jordon]

Do you know if the bass was a MusicMan Stingray? I've had this issue with every DI I've recorded with a Stingray.

 

[cent73]

Thanks for tips!

The bass was a Spector, but I can't remember which one.

Actually, I just checked other tracks from the same session and the clicks appear on both DI and mic'd tracks. Have no damn idea what caused them... The guy who recorded them, supposedly was careful with setting up the correct levels. Could it be active pickups?

As far as getting rid of them clicks, I read some good things about Izotope RX, but I totally forgot there are some restoration tools with Adobe Audition. The plugin Click/Pop Eliminator works great - I'm using manual "Fill single click" feature.

 

[drew_drummer]

Sounds like the pickups were too high during recording, imho.

 

[Lucas D'Angelo]

+1 , definately sounds like strings hitting the pickup....

 

[AD Chaos]

I'm having this exact same issue with some guitar tracks atm (to a lesser extent, though).. thought it was some eq thing at first..

But in my case the strings are definitely not hitting the pickup.. could it be the string vibrating too close to the pup anyways?
(I have a Blackouts there- quite a hot pup)

 

[xFkx]

Izotope RX Declicker

words of wisdom

 

[rfahey86]

Can you post a clip? You could always try zooming in on the clicks and just use the pencil tool to edit the click and redraw the wave straight through. This works for me, but if there are too many I would figure out where the problem is coming from. I could be you are taxing the processing power of your system and it can't keep up with the audio. Try recording the bass by itself with no plug's or other tracks enabled. If you need a track to play too, just bounce everything to one track and delete it after you finish recording the bass.

 

[Marcobass]

Are you sure they aren't digital clicks? They gave you all the project open or just the tracks to mix? I'm asking this because every click that I hear is where a new bar starts. If so, check the editing and try to match the waves of both takes in each bar.

 

[MindMunch]

The problem was probably the bass setup (loose strings, pickups height, pickups condition, etc) and the way of playing. The guy who tracked was careless and overlooked it. I had to mix a demo with DIs like this, and what worked the best was to dial a very distorted bass tone to mask the clicks.

 

[MondoLikeMetal]

The clicks could be the sound you hear when clips start and end. You need to crossfade these out.

 

[cent73]

Thank you guys, you've been most helpful!

rfahey86 - I don't know if you read my original post actually I didn't record them and there is a link to the clip. I also tried drawing the wave but I'm a poor artist... It doesn't work for me with a mouse.

Marcobass & MondoLikeMetal - it's me who does all the editing of takes and I'm very careful not to introduce any editing related clicks so I'm pretty sure they're not my fault. Actually, there are much more of them than edits I did.

Drew, Lucas, MindMunch - this could be the pickups height. I'll let the basman know.

arv_foh, xFkx - I'll definitely give Izotop Declicker a try. Thanks! For now, I've gotten quite good results with the Audition's Click/Pop Eliminator, though.