Solved Clicks in recorded audio. Interface or processor?

[curranr]

Hi all,
I'm getting infrequent random clicks in my recorded audio and am trying to determine whether it would be better to upgrade my processor or my interface.
I record acoustic string instruments using a variety of mics and an Avalon vt 737sp pre that's very clean, besides which, the clicks sound digital and don't seem to appear as obvious spikes in the waveform, at any magnification. I've determined that the clicks are in fact in the recorded audio by playing the files on completely different systems.
My device block size is set to 128 samples, if I go higher the latency is unworkable, lower and playback is jittery. I mostly record in 24bit 48kHz (although the clicks also occur at 44.1kHz). I use minimal plug-ins when recording, so just Studio One's bog standard reverb. All sample plug-ins are disabled when I record, and the CPU performance monitor shows no sign of being under undue stress. My PC has been optimised for audio production by the people who built it (Scan computers).
I frequently record up to 40 tracks of strings, but this doesn't seem to make any difference. I can get a click in the very first take, and none at all in the rest.
Although the clicks tend to occur during the louder parts of notes (never during very quiet signals), the signal is a long way off clipping at any point in the signal path.
This doesn't happen often, not even every session, but frequently enough to be annoying so I'd like to fix it if possible. Any advice on the likely source of the issue (processor or interface) would be very welcome.
Studio One 7 Pro
Windows 11
Intel Core i5-14600K (3.5 GHz, 5.3 GHz boost)
16GB RAM
1TB SSD
Presonus Studio68c USB-C interface (connected to a USB-C port via a good quality cable. It wasn't cheap anyway)
Norton antivirus (could it be this? It's bloody annoying in every other way)

 

[Jemusic]

These types of clicks can sometimes be associated with the sample clock. eg sync. With Universal Control open for example does the clock source say 'Internal' Is the sync light blue and on with your interface. Try a different cable connecting your interface. It might also be something to do with your computer running background apps etc..

 

[John Vere]

Troubleshooting 101
Swap out hardware - interface, cables.
While troubleshooting disable the internet.
Disable all 3rd party apps that are on the startup list in windows settings. Lots of these things try and phone home.
Make sure your A/C power is clean and that your studio is isolated from things that use motors or compressors.

 

[SwitchBack]

Cooling fans running at max? Then your processor may be throttling. Often clicks are some kind of buffering problem, something not keeping up.

 

[Jemusic]

Also what John Vere mentioned about power being clean is also important. In Australia anyway there are often three phases of power in the street and they put each third house onto the same phase. You could be on the same phase as a house that is causing switching transients (due to certain machinery etc) even many houses away from you. I deigned and built my own power filter which I have connected to my main computer. It is basically a low pass filter that only goes up just past the 50 Hz frequency that we have here but does this at 240 Volts though. They also use the mains power to send and all sorts of signals on top of the mains voltages. (You would be horrified if you knew how much goes on here) Can you get your hands on a power filter and try it out. It would at least rule this issue out if it still persisted.

 

[curranr]

These types of clicks can sometimes be associated with the sample clock. eg sync. With Universal Control open for example does the clock source say 'Internal' Is the sync light blue and on with your interface. Try a different cable connecting your interface. It might also be something to do with your computer running background apps etc..

Thanks for your reply Jemusic. I'll certainly check with Universal Control, that's an area of DAWs that I know little about but will get head round.
The expensive USB-C cable I use was bought to replace the cheap looking cable that came with the interface, because I thought that might be the problem. Made no difference sadly.

 

[curranr]

Troubleshooting 101
Swap out hardware - interface, cables.
While troubleshooting disable the internet.
Disable all 3rd party apps that are on the startup list in windows settings. Lots of these things try and phone home.
Make sure your A/C power is clean and that your studio is isolated from things that use motors or compressors.

Thanks for your reply John.
I tried swapping the audio and USB cables but no luck sadly.
Also my internet and all other programmes are shut down when I record. I'll have a proper look at background apps. I'm assuming that Scan computers did what was necessary because the machine was sold as optimised, but to be honest I haven't checked this.
The only other usable interface I own (apart from a load of prehistoric Digidesign 882s from an old ProTools set up I used to use) is a crappy old M-Audio thing. I'll give it a shot but from memory it's only USB 2. I'd be surprised if it'd cope but you never know.
The mains power thing is interesting. I don't have any conditioning. I suppose I probably should.

 

[curranr]

Cooling fans running at max? Then your processor may be throttling. Often clicks are some kind of buffering problem, something not keeping up.

Thanks for your reply Switchback. The buffering thing was my first thought too, mainly because I've had it before on a much older machine and that's exactly what it sounded like. This is the reason why I'm wondering if it might be the processor that's not up to the job.
Regarding cooling. Could be, how would I be able to tell?
I had the performance monitor up the other day with a big 48kHz session running around 30 tracks of recorded audio. Of the 20 cores only 6 were showing substantial activity. The rest weren't inactive, just a lot less active. I don't know enough to know if this is significant. Maybe I should invest in an i7? Or could it be that the interface isn't up to it?

 

[curranr]

Also what John Vere mentioned about power being clean is also important. In Australia anyway there are often three phases of power in the street and they put each third house onto the same phase. You could be on the same phase as a house that is causing switching transients (due to certain machinery etc) even many houses away from you. I deigned and built my own power filter which I have connected to my main computer. It is basically a low pass filter that only goes up just past the 50 Hz frequency that we have here but does this at 240 Volts though. They also use the mains power to send and all sorts of signals on top of the mains voltages. (You would be horrified if you knew how much goes on here) Can you get your hands on a power filter and try it out. It would at least rule this issue out if it still persisted.

Yes. I almost certainly should do this anyway. I work in a converted outbuilding on a spur from the house, but it's ultimately connected to the same consumer unit as everything else.

 

[Craig Anderton]

I noticed your sig says "3.5 GHz with 5.3 GHz boost." Could overclocking be the issue? If you turn off overclocking, do the clicks go away?

 

[John Vere]

It’s odd how power works. I had lots of issues when I lived in a rural setting where our house was at the end of the power line and there was very few neighbours.
Now I moved to town my power seems clean. But I still use a Furman line conditioner.
In the rural home studio I would always hear clicking sounds but they never printed to the recording.
I put Ferrite Chokes on my USB cables and that seemed to work.
But there’s a lot of things that can cause what you’re hearing.
My Motu M4 keeps bonking out on me and I have to reboot the computer.
I gave up and bought a SSL2 which never does that anymore but it is terrible because it is so wimpy in all aspects of volume. I have to max out the headphones and the master volume?
You figure after all these years someone could make an interface that actually works!!

 

[curranr]

I noticed your sig says "3.5 GHz with 5.3 GHz boost." Could overclocking be the issue? If you turn off overclocking, do the clicks go away?

Hi Craig, thanks for your response.
This interested me as the PC is fairly new and is based around a gaming motherboard, so I went into the BIOS. Sure enough there is a variety of "performance enhancing" stuff in there, including XMP (RAM overclocking I think), Intel adaptive boost and ASUS performance enhancement. I've disabled them so we'll see what happens. It's an infrequent fault so it'll either be today or later in the week!

 

[Vocalpoint]

Hmm - my guess is that none of this has anything to do with your interface or CPU. It has to do with Windows 11.

First download a utility called LatencyMon - run it and post up your results for us. Almost a guarantee that LatencyMon will tell you that there is an issue and your will probably see a huge red bar in the report - and some file names.

Next - take a half hour or so and Google "Core Parking + Windows 11" and read up on why this is happening

Then locate another tool called Park Control from Bitsum and install it - and assert control of all your CPU cores.

Chances are very high that your clicks, pops and other glitches - will be a thing of the past.

VP

 

[curranr]

Hmm - my guess is that none of this has anything to do with your interface or CPU. It has to do with Windows 11.

First download a utility called LatencyMon - run it and post up your results for us. Almost a guarantee that LatencyMon will tell you that there is an issue and your will probably see a huge red bar in the report - and some file names.

Next - take a half hour or so and Google "Core Parking + Windows 11" and read up on why this is happening

Then locate another tool called Park Control from Bitsum and install it - and assert control of all your CPU cores.

Chances are very high that your clicks, pops and other glitches - will be a thing of the past.

VP

Hi Vocalpoint and thanks for your response. This, or something very like it, sounds promising. I did come across this issue of core parking on a different forum (not my question though and the circumstances were slightly different). I did have a look at Resource Monitor when the computer was performing various tasks, and although Studio One appeared to favour only 5 or 6 cores, at no time were the other 15 completely idle. So I assumed (possibly wrongly?) that this wasn't my issue.
All that being said, I'll certainly do as you suggest and post the results. Most of this stuff is only a couple of years old and functions perfectly well in almost every other respect. I really don't want to have to replace anything unless it's necessary!

 

[curranr]

Hmm - my guess is that none of this has anything to do with your interface or CPU. It has to do with Windows 11.

First download a utility called LatencyMon - run it and post up your results for us. Almost a guarantee that LatencyMon will tell you that there is an issue and your will probably see a huge red bar in the report - and some file names.

Next - take a half hour or so and Google "Core Parking + Windows 11" and read up on why this is happening

Then locate another tool called Park Control from Bitsum and install it - and assert control of all your CPU cores.

Chances are very high that your clicks, pops and other glitches - will be a thing of the past.

VP

Ok, so the first image is after running the app during a 30minute run recording a few tracks of audio in a 24bit 48kHz session with 23 existing tracks of audio, one video track and minimal plug-ins (no click sounds audible on those takes, but that doesn't mean there won't be on whatever I do tomorrow).
The second image is now after I'd exported the audio, generated a link through OneDrive and emailed it to the client. DAW still open but not running anything.
To my pitifully untutored eye the graphics drivers look to be a bit resource heavy. Could it really just be a case of updating the bios and the graphics drivers? I'll definitely check out the CPU throttling thing but I already disabled a few "performance enhancements" and RAM overclocking settings this morning. Are there any overheating implications if I do this?
Loving this Latencymon thing. It's the first time I've seen something that gives me anything like useful information.

 

[Vocalpoint]

Ok, so the first image is after running the app during a 30minute run recording a few tracks of audio in a 24bit 48kHz session with 23 existing tracks of audio, one video track and minimal plug-ins (no click sounds audible on those takes, but that doesn't mean there won't be on whatever I do tomorrow).
The second image is now after I'd exported the audio, generated a link through OneDrive and emailed it to the client. DAW still open but not running anything.
To my pitifully untutored eye the graphics drivers look to be a bit resource heavy. Could it really just be a case of updating the bios and the graphics drivers? I'll definitely check out the CPU throttling thing but I already disabled a few "performance enhancements" and RAM overclocking settings this morning. Are there any overheating implications if I do this?
Loving this Latencymon thing. It's the first time I've seen something that gives me anything like useful information.

View attachment 1599
View attachment 1600

Ideally - for best results - LatencyMon should be run - with nothing going on.

Just fire it up and come back 7 minutes later. That is really all it takes

Your system is not too bad - I have seen much worse - like mine when I first installed Windows 11 - and then rolled back to Windows 10.

And LatencyMon results are not necessarily designed to point out specific files being problematic - it is designed to show you that your system (in general) is not as efficient as it could be.

You definitely need to do some housekeeping - and I would start with ParkControl before anything else - especially messing around in the BIOS.

If Park Control alone does not do the trick - there are much deeper tools now available for setting a more tuned Power Profile for a DAW - which can have a drastic effect on real time audio. I can give you some pointers there after you get Park Control going - if needed.

VP

 

[curranr]

Ideally - for best results - LatencyMon should be run - with nothing going on.

Just fire it up and come back 7 minutes later. That is really all it takes

Your system is not too bad - I have seen much worse - like mine when I first installed Windows 11 - and then rolled back to Windows 10.

And LatencyMon results are not necessarily designed to point out specific files being problematic - it is designed to show you that your system (in general) is not as efficient as it could be.

You definitely need to do some housekeeping - and I would start with ParkControl before anything else - especially messing around in the BIOS.

If Park Control alone does not do the trick - there are much deeper tools now available for setting a more tuned Power Profile for a DAW - which can have a drastic effect on real time audio. I can give you some pointers there after you get Park Control going - if needed.

VP

Thanks VP. I'll have a look at that tomorrow for sure.

 

[lokeyfly]

Hi all,

.....Norton antivirus (could it be this? It's bloody annoying in every other way)

On top of the already good advice youve received, and running latencymon, yeah running Norton Anti-virus isn't something you should have on. Given the actual need to optimize your DAW. You shouldn't have any antivirus running in the background at all.

 

[curranr]

On top of the already good advice youve received, and running latencymon, yeah running Norton Anti-virus isn't something you should have on. Given the actual need to optimize your DAW. You shouldn't have any antivirus running in the background at all.

Thanks for your response lokeyfly. My Norton sub runs out in a couple of weeks and I'm definitely not renewing it. Whatever I get will be easy to disable for precisely this reason!

 

[Vocalpoint]

Thanks for your response lokeyfly. My Norton sub runs out in a couple of weeks and I'm definitely not renewing it. Whatever I get will be easy to disable for precisely this reason!

All you need on Windows - is Defender (with a healthy dose of scripting AND exclusions to ensure it does not interfere with any key DAW apps) and a one a week manual scan with MalwareBytes.

There is no point in using (or paying for) any third party AV solution - especially on a DAW - here in 2025.

VP