How to Fix Audio Clicks and Pops

Before opening any plugin, listen to the file and characterise the artefacts. Regular, rhythmic clicks every fraction of a second usually point to a sample-rate or clock mismatch. Random, isolated pops at unpredictable times are typically buffer underruns or wireless dropouts. Clicks only at clip starts and ends inside your DAW are edit-point discontinuities. Constant low-level crackle layered through the whole file is often electrical interference (ground loop, USB noise) or a damaged cable. Open the file in Audacity, convert to [WAV](/convert/mp3-to-wav) first if needed, and zoom in until samples are individually visible — click defects are 1-3 sample wide vertical jumps. Spectrogram view (View > Spectrogram) shows clicks as bright vertical streaks across all frequencies. Write down whether the clicks are periodic, random, at edits, or continuous before choosing a fix path.

Periodic clicks at consistent intervals (e.g. one every 2 seconds) almost always come from a sample-rate mismatch between source, interface, and project. A 48 kHz file played through a 44.1 kHz session needs resampling; cheap or buggy resamplers introduce rhythmic clicks at the period of the discontinuity. Fix: in Audacity check Tracks > Track Properties > Rate matches Project Rate (bottom-left). In Logic, Pro Tools, and Reaper, the project sample rate must equal the audio interface rate (set in Core Audio / ASIO control panel). If your file's native rate disagrees with the project, resample using the [MP3 to WAV](/convert/mp3-to-wav) or [FLAC to WAV](/convert/flac-to-wav) tool with explicit rate selection rather than relying on a real-time resampler. See [audio sample rate explained](/blog/audio-sample-rate-explained) for a full breakdown of common mismatches.

A buffer underrun happens when the CPU cannot deliver samples to the audio interface in time. The result is a drop to silence for one buffer cycle, audible as a pop. Underruns during recording bake the click permanently into the file. Underruns during playback produce clicks that disappear when you play back at a larger buffer. Prevention: raise buffer size to 256 or 512 samples in your interface driver before tracking — latency will rise to ~10 ms but the recording will be clean. Disable Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Time Machine, Spotlight indexing, and any browser tab playing video while tracking. On laptops, plug in mains power; battery saver throttles the CPU. Repair after the fact: iZotope RX 11 De-click and Adobe Audition's Auto Heal (DC Pop Eliminator) can interpolate across single-buffer dropouts up to a few milliseconds wide.

Cuts in a DAW only sound clean if the waveform is at or near zero amplitude on both sides of the cut. Cut through a peak and you create a vertical step that the speaker reproduces as a click. Fix in any DAW: apply a 5-20 ms fade or crossfade across the edit. In Reaper, hold S to enable auto-crossfade; in Pro Tools, Cmd+F applies a 10 ms crossfade to the selected edit. Audacity: Effect > Fade In / Fade Out on a 50-sample selection. Better long-term habit: enable 'Snap to Zero Crossings' (Audacity: Z; Reaper: zero-crossing snap) so cuts always land at a silent sample. For dialogue, place edits on consonants or breaths where transient noise hides any residual click.

Continuous low-level crackle across an entire recording usually means an analogue problem upstream of the converter. Common sources: a ground loop between mixer and interface, a USB bus shared with a powered hub, a phone or laptop charger on the same circuit, a frayed XLR cable, or a TRS cable used where TS was needed. Diagnose by recording 30 seconds of pure silence with the mic muted; if crackle persists, the chain is at fault. Fixes: use a dedicated USB port (not a hub), swap to a balanced XLR cable, lift the ground with a Hum-X or DI box, run laptop on battery, reseat all connectors. Crackle that suddenly appears mid-session is often a cold solder joint or strain-relief failure inside an XLR connector — replace the cable rather than try to denoise it.

Once the recording is captured, click repair is interpolation: the algorithm detects an out-of-place sample group and replaces it with what the surrounding waveform predicts. iZotope RX De-click is the industry tool; for free, Audacity's Effect > Click Removal handles vinyl-style ticks (set Threshold to 200 and Max Spike Width to 20). Adobe Audition's Spectral Frequency Display lets you paint over individual click streaks. Convert lossy files to [WAV](/convert/mp3-to-wav) before repair — denoise and declick plugins behave unpredictably on MP3 frames. Always work on a copy and A/B against the original. Aggressive declicking removes consonant transients in dialogue and percussive attacks in music; if the cure sounds worse than the disease, dial back sensitivity. See [fix audio crackling](/guide/fix-audio-crackling) for the related buffer-issue path.

Repair has limits. If clicks occur more than once per second across most of the file, the cumulative interpolation will smear transients and dull the recording. Files with hardware-fault crackle (a dying converter chip, a failing hard drive corrupting writes) cannot be saved by software — every frame is suspect. Voiceover work for ACX or broadcast is held to a -60 dBFS noise floor and audible click defects are an automatic rejection; re-recording the affected lines is faster and cheaper than spending hours on RX. Set a personal rule: spend no more than 10 minutes attempting to repair a 60-second clip before deciding to re-record. Capture a clean take, archive both, and move on.