why do my recorded project files click and snap like hell?HELP

[updog]

Anyone else ever had this problem?

I have random snaps and clicks on the guitars and bass I've recorded. Mostly this occurs when there's a long note being played, and the clicks and snaps occur at the exact same time every time I play back the project.

The interesting thing is, the noises aren't actually in the audio, there's no sign of them when I examine the waveforms, but still they occur precisely at the same time every time when the project is played back. There aren't too many of them, but I can find them often enough for it to get fucking annoying.

What makes this even more awesome is that the noises are included in any bounces I make.

I'm suspecting this has got something to do with the playback of the samples, although the clicks occur in the middle of the samples, so fades wouldn't help. I wonder if the problem would be my external HDD.

Sometimes re-recording helps, but it's very frustrating as the actual performances would do but then they can't be used because of shit like this.

Here's what I use for tracking:

Apple MacBook early 2008 2,4GHz 4GB
Logic Studio 9
Focusrite Saffire Pro 40
Western Digital MyBook Studio Edition 500GB (FW400,FW800,USB, I use FW400, the external harddrive is connected to the Saffire Pro 40's additional FireWire-port but there should be enough bandwidth for it to work well enough through the Saffire Pro)


edit:

Here's a clip of what I'm talking about , in case it helps. Just click the 'play' icon and you'll hear it:

http://maihinnousu.net/s/?song_id=5140

 

[ahjteam]

increase buffersize

 

[updog]

increase buffersize

That's the first thing I tried, and they went nowhere even at maximum buffersize, 1024 samples.

 

[P-E]

Are you watching HD movies while it's rendering? Your CPU might work too hard.

 

[updog]

Sorry guys, just noticed the clicks are very much IN the audio after all, they just were very hard to spot because they were the same level as the other waveforms. Now I figured a way to fix it.


Now that we're at it, I'd like to know how you all prevent clicks from getting recorded. Like what you do to the "dirty" mains power (which I believe is the source of my problem) and stuff like that?

 

[matt youwin]

I was getting clicks and pops with my onboard firewire port, switched to a pci-express firewire card (texas instruments chipset - the best for firewire interfaces) and now I'm all good Don't know if that's an option since you're on a macbook...

 

[AudioPhile777]

It sounds like jitter... are you using another source, like an extra preamp with a clock and you're using another clock source?

make sure your clock source and adat/preamp or whatever is all sync'd.

 

[updog]

There's no PCI port unfortunately

I don't have any extra clock sources, I use directly the instrument outputs of the Saffire Pro and it's connected directly to the macbook.

I'm thinking of getting a 7200rpm internal harddrive...could work better I think

 

[ChrisBigart]

I have had the same kinds of problems. As others have said, I think audio frames (not sure what the correct term for this is) are being dropped, kinda like choppy framerate in an FPS or something. Try checking the 'i/o safety buffer' in Logic's audio preferences, and having fewer processed tracks playback while you are recording.

 

[DaWolf]

Sorry for the bump but I think it kinda fits here..
I have those clicks in a kick track (rendered with drumagog). What could be the issue here ? A drumagog thing ? It`s only in that fast part and it seems the spikes at the same time behind the transients.