Pops and click from Kemper track...

    Hi all,


    I am in the final stages of getting an album done, and I got the masters back last night from the mastering engineer.


    On one particular track, the right rhythm guitar had a fair few pops and clicks in it. On most others there are some fainting clicks and pops, but it could be me "hearing" the pops and clicks as I am a little paranoid about the integrity of my tracks at this point.


    Anyways, on the track in question, I opened up the mix in logic and checked the track in solo, and true enough there were pops and clicks, albeit faint ones. You wouldn't hear it in the full mix, but the master was squashed with a limiter that made these things more obvious. Its not "Death Magnetic" squashed, but it is loud enough to be competitive with more "famouser" band releases.


    In a few of the other tracks, there are some very obvious and loud "clicks" now and again, that can be quite noticeable if you look for them. Its gotten me paranoid now that I have been going back over a couple of tracks last night comping away anything that I think could be perceived as a "flaw"....to the point that I wasted 2 hours doing this until realising that I could never be happy and just reverted to a pre-comping-like-a-mad-man save file! (Glad I did....its music made by humans, not robots....not YET anyways! ;) )


    Since I recorded these tracks with the Kemper direct, it makes me question... are some profiles more "clicky" than others?
    My guitar for this track had Seymour Duncan Blackouts and I used the bridge pickup.


    The culprit/profile in question above is the Keith Merrow "Shorted Out" profile with no pedals in the chain....just the guitar and the amp and cab profile tone. :)



    Anyways, long story short, I tried to fix the clicks by moving around parts, but I realised after an hour or so that I was just "turd polishing" at this point, so I re-recorded the part with a different profile.
    Job done in 45mins! (4 min track, about 4-5 good takes, wasted about 10 mins in dud takes and tuning times between takes.... and the rest just some random noodling around! :) )





    Is this simply a "some profiles are more "click-prone" than others" type of scenario, or are there some steps to take to prevent this from happening?


    Know-a-days I actively set the Kemper as the master clock with my interface (UAD Apollo) running at 44.1KHz and I leave the constant latency switch engaged on my Kemper in case I need to re-amp. ( I always record out a DI also from the KPA). I will admit, when I originally tracked the song, I cannot remember if I did or knew to set the KPA as the master clock. Could this be a clocking issue?
    I may have indeed set the KPA as the master...I cannot honestly remember, and I was too green at the time to take notes of that detail! :)


    I use Logic 9.1.8 with OSX 10.8.5 and a UAD Apollo as my audio interface FWIW. I use a KPA Powerhead v2.3 (public release) and I do all my recording over SPDIF. Sometimes I mic up my cab and crank a profile through my 4x12, but I didnt on this album.
    thanks! :) :thumbup:

    Quote from Raoul23

    I would say clicking issue



    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

    Erm, thanks friend but I know its a "clicking" issue :) . Could you perhaps elaborate as to what makes you think that?
    I see you sent a phone reply so Im not expecting a big spiel! :)
    thanks

    Quote

    Erm, thanks friend but I know its a "clicking" issue :) . Could you perhaps elaborate as to what makes you think that?
    I see you sent a phone reply so Im not expecting a big spiel! :)
    thanks


    Sorry it was ment to say clocking :) was watching my son play football


    I had this a few times when I first got my KPA I forgot to change the KPA to master :)



    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

    First, I'd recommend going back to the analog track and reviewing it to see if the same clicks exist in the analog as the digital s/pdif. If its clean then you can bet it's a syncing issue with the digital track.


    If the analog track has clicks and pops then I'd be looking at my profilers config... I can get pops and clicks coming from pick noise... so it's the usual things, too much compression, gating, limiting... but now witht the profiler you have the amp attributes to review as well...


    I always record the stereo analogs with the digital on separate tracks.. I've posted on other threads the benefits.. just for times such as these.


    Best of luck!

    Gettin' funky up in here..

    Also, make sure there are no Dolphins in the room when you record next time.
    They like to switch your analog lines to SPDIF.


    I had this issue once with a UA card and Reaper. The pops and clicks actually got written to previously recorded tracks that were "read only" which permanently damaging them!
    I was quite mad, and started keeping 2 backups which once saved my ass when I lost 2 discs at once.


    But you definitely have a Dolphin problem.

    The profiler can't be switched to master or slave. Your audio interface should have an option for setting it to slave, then the profiler is master automatically.

    I could have farted and it would have sounded good! (Brian Johnson)

    Usual culprit is non-synchronised sample rates. Clicks and artefacts could also occur due to defective cables. Find out what caused it and eliminate. You'd be surprised what some people hear the first time they listen to a CD, I say you re-record the offending bits, or if you have the right plugin -- Samplitude has something like this, a spectral analyser -- scrub out all the clipping and clicking sounds.

    I cant be 100% sure that this was the cause, as I recorded it ages ago, but sure here goes:


    I think the 2 reasons I got these issues were:
    1 - Likely did not set the master clock correctly.
    2 - I did not practice the part enough. (Im much better at guitar than I used to be thanks to the KPA, but likely I did not know the part well enough when I orginally laid it down.)
    3 - I suspect that I may have clipped the input light. My Seymour Duncan Blackouts are fairly hot compared to my other main guitar (active PUPs vs passive PUPs I suppose).
    I may not have set this right.
    4 - The profile is very distorted naturally, so chances are this combined with step 3 gave more click-clips...



    Anyways, I re-recorded the part and all is well now. :thumbup: