Clicks and Pops from Your Recordings Without Losing the Soul

Australia's music scene has never been short of character, from the raw garage rock of inner-Sydney pubs to the lush electronic landscapes produced in share houses across Brunswick. Whether you're laying down a demo in a Brisbane bedroom or cutting a final vocal in a converted warehouse in Fremantle, unwanted clicks and pops can sneak into the cleanest of takes. They arrive through dodgy cables, dusty preamps, ageing vintage synths, or even the crack of a vocal sibilance that wasn't caught during tracking. The trick is knowing when to prevent them, when to edit them out surgically, and when to lean on software that can polish a performance without sanding away its personality.

Working through this process has become second nature for engineers at LnL Recording, where session players from across the country ship stems for cleanup before final mixdown. Knowing how to handle a stray click or a runaway pop keeps the workflow fast and keeps the artist's intention intact. The steps below cover the same approach used in studios that handle everything from Triple J-ready singles to audiobook narration recorded in a quiet Adelaide study.

Pinpointing what actually made the noise

Before reaching for any plugin, it's worth understanding what causes these tiny sonic interruptions. A click is usually a short, transient spike measured in milliseconds, while a pop tends to have more low-frequency weight, often caused by a burst of air hitting a microphone diaphragm. Plosives from singers saying words starting with "p" or "b" are the most common culprit, particularly when a pop filter hasn't been used or when a vocalist moves across the mic during an emotional phrase.

Electrical interference can also produce clicks, especially in older buildings with temperamental wiring. Many Melbourne-based home studios share walls with cafés or share houses, and the hum from a fridge compressor or a dodgy espresso machine can sneak into a recording as a steady buzz punctuated by clicks when something switches on. USB ground loops between a laptop and an audio interface are another frequent offender, particularly when the interface is plugged into a different power point than the computer itself.

Digital errors are a third category. Buffer underruns, sample clock mismatches, and cheap cabling between gear can all introduce small ticks. Anyone recording through a long hot Aussie summer knows that air conditioning compressors cycling on and off will cause these little pops too, so checking the recording environment before a session saves hours later. Even the gentle click of a power board switching modes in an old Adelaide Hills property can show up in a high-gain recording.

Setting up the session to avoid the problem in the first place

Prevention is always quicker than repair, and a few simple habits will eliminate most clicks before a single waveform hits the screen. Start with a clean signal chain. Test every cable before a session, and keep spares on hand, because a cable that worked perfectly yesterday can develop an intermittent fault overnight in a humid Brisbane studio.

Microphone technique matters more than any plugin ever will. Coach singers to angle the mic slightly off-axis rather than straight on, and position the pop filter at a consistent distance of about two fist-widths. Australian vocalists often have a habit of leaning in when the chorus hits, which can push plosives straight into the capsule. A gentle reminder during takes to maintain position saves significant cleanup later.

Ground loops deserve attention before recording starts. Plugging all gear into a single power board, using balanced XLR cables where possible, and lifting the ground on a DI box only as a last resort will keep electrical noise out of the chain. For anyone working from a regional studio in a town like Byron or Hobart, where the local power grid can be less stable, a quality power conditioner is worth the investment. Take hygiene during the session also helps. Use a fresh pop filter, wipe down microphone grilles between takes, and keep mobile phones well away from the mic. Even the faint vibration of a phone buzzing on a desk during a quiet acoustic passage can register as a click in a high-gain recording.

Software tools that make light work of most imperfections

When prevention falls short, modern editing software can usually clean things up in seconds. Spectral editors such as iZotope RX, Acon Digital Restoration Suite, or the bundled tools in Reaper and Pro Tools offer dedicated click and declip modules. These analyse the frequency content around the offending moment and reconstruct what should have been there based on the surrounding audio.

For light cleanup, a simple declicker often does the job. Run it across the entire track at a low threshold to catch small ticks that might otherwise be missed during playback. Then switch to manual mode for the bigger events, painting out plosives or breath spikes that the automated pass flagged but couldn't resolve cleanly. Most engineers working on Australian pop productions find that a two-pass approach, automated broad sweep followed by careful manual repair, keeps the natural room sound alive while removing the unwanted artefacts.

De-essers and dynamic EQs can also help tame the harshness of a plosive without removing it entirely, which works well for spoken word, podcasts, and audiobooks where pulling the "p" sound from "pen" would make the speech sound unnatural. The same tools are equally useful when cleaning up archival recordings from community radio stations or when restoring old 78s for a historical project down at the local library.

Manual techniques for surgical cleanup

Sometimes software simply isn't enough, and a pair of hands on the timeline is the only way to honour the original performance. Zoom in close on the waveform, and look for the click as a thin vertical line that breaks the smooth flow of the audio around it. Highlight just the offending sample, often only one or two points wide, and either delete it or crossfade it from the neighbouring waveform.

For louder pops with more low-end weight, use a short volume automation dip rather than a hard delete. Pull the gain down over perhaps five to ten milliseconds, then bring it back up. This keeps the natural envelope of the vocal intact while reducing the pop's impact. It works particularly well for dialogue editing in voice-over sessions where the speech cadence must remain believable, especially for corporate narration and audiobook work recorded in a hurry between meetings.

Repair tools like the spectral editor in iZotope RX or the built-in Pencil tool in Reaper allow precise selection of just the click without affecting surrounding audio. These tools use spectral editing to rebuild the missing samples based on the frequency content from before and after the click. For Australian radio producers editing interviews recorded on location at events like Woodford Folk Festival, this kind of tool is invaluable when the alternative is asking the subject to come back for a retake months later.

Batch processing across multiple files also speeds up turnaround. Many engineers save a chain or preset that handles the bulk of the work, then move through stems quickly, making only the surgical repairs by hand. The same preset works well across genres, whether the material is a folky ballad tracked at a farm stay in the Adelaide Hills or a heavy mix coming from a Perth metal band.

Repairing old or archival material

Archival material presents its own challenges. Tapes from the 1980s and 1990s often have a combination of clicks, hiss, and dropouts, and the goal is usually to preserve the character of the original recording while making it more listenable. A gentle declicker applied before any noise reduction helps prevent the hiss reduction algorithm from interpreting each click as noise and smearing the surrounding audio.

Magnetic tape can develop sticky shed syndrome, especially when stored in non-climate-controlled spaces. This causes the oxide layer to lift from the backing during playback, producing both clicks and dropouts. Baking the tape in a controlled low-temperature oven can temporarily restore playback, but professional tape baking equipment is recommended. Several Australian archival facilities offer this service, and it's worth contacting one before attempting the process at home.

Vinyl transfers come with their own quirks. The combination of surface noise, scratches, and groove wear can be addressed with declicking, declipping, and careful EQ. Some engineers prefer to leave a touch of surface noise to preserve the warmth of the format, particularly when restoring jazz recordings originally cut at studios in Sydney's Surry Hills. Knowing when to stop is just as important as knowing how to clean, because over-processing can strip away the very character that made the recording worth preserving in the first place.

For projects that need a fresh recording alongside restored audio, the same attention to mic technique and signal chain pays off. Artists preparing a reissue often record new overdubs at a separate studio, and the workflow covered in recording a folk duo addresses much of the same ground for capturing acoustic performances cleanly.

Common tools worth knowing

A short list of plugins and editors worth keeping within reach for any cleanup session:

• iZotope RX Standard or higher, which bundles declick, declip, and spectral repair modules
• Acon Digital Restoration Suite, a lighter-weight alternative with strong results on speech
• Reaper's built-in Pencil tool and click removal actions, useful when budget is tight
• Audacity's built-in click remover for quick fixes on voice memos and podcast drafts

Habits that keep recordings clean from the first take

A few habits that consistently produce cleaner takes from the start:

• Wipe down pop filters and mic grilles between sessions
• Check all cable runs for intermittent faults before each take
• Record ten seconds of silence at the head of every take for noise profiling
• Keep a consistent distance between vocalist and microphone