Need Help! – Clicks and pops on Continuous Tracks

[vitaming]

Hi 001 fanatics!

I need your help… see, I’m doing a soundtrack for a children’s play on the Digi 001, my first project btw, and I happen to have continuous tracks that I hope to burn on a CD without the annoying clicks and pops during the beginning and end of each track…

Continuous tracks? Well, let me explain… there are 10 scenes (this would equate to 10 tracks) in this play I’m scoring, where the music actually flows continuously from scene to scene… I have actually bounced to disk, these 10 scenes/tracks individually and have burned these tracks onto a CDR using iTunes, with the option of having no spaces in between the tracks…

However, the result is what I’ve already described… there are annoying clicks and pops in between the tracks and this is very distracting… any advice on what I should do?

One alternative is to bounce to disk the whole soundtrack as one track, but this is not very useful for the children who will need discrete tracks for their rehearsals/performance… would really appreciate any advice that you guys/gals might have… do I need another software program, or can this thing be done on Pro Tools LE?

Thanks in advance!

Vitamin G

[Mr T]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>"I happen to have continuous tracks " <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
If I understand this right ,you're not talking about tracks but regions. Anyway,in both case, create short fades where it pops...

[vitaming]

Thanks Mr T! I've tried to create short fades but I think in pro tools, there is some minimum amount of secs needed to create fades... so I was unable to do this...

BTW, wouldn't creating short fades defeat the purpose of having a seamless soundtrack for the play, since each track would have a fade off at the end?

[Park Seward]

Expand the waveform and see if you have cut on a zero crossing (where the waveform crosses the center line). If you cut there, you should not get any pops.

[Mr T]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR> "I've tried to create short fades but I think in pro tools, there is some minimum amount of secs needed to create fades... so I was unable to do this..." <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
The default set up of the fades I'm using when working with the smart tool is 10 milliseconds !! I mean...take a second, divide it by 100 and you get ten milliseconds!!
It's almost as if the fade was not even existing.
Just a quick and efficient way to get rid of pops and clicks.
As far as the "seamless" thing is concerned, here's how I would do this:
place your regions on two tracks (region#1 on track 1, region#2 on tr2, region#3 on tr1, region#4 on tr2....).
I would trim the ending of each regions a little (so that they overlap eachother) and then create the short fades I was talking about (to get rid of the pop; maybe trimming the region will avoid having to use the fades).
When finished, bounce the whole thing using Multiple Mono (assuming you're working on stereo files) / SDII / bit depth of your session, and select Import after convert.
Take the resulting stereo file to one stereo track . You can now separate the whole resulting region at any points you wish (without fearing any pops/clicks). Then bounce the resulting regions separately using Stereo Interleaved/ Aiff or SDII/ 16 bits. Burn this on a CD using 0 sec. length between tracks AND "Disc at once" option (if you have Toast) .
I've worked on a record where I didn't want the music to stop from the beginning to the end; I've tried different ways to do it (involving less steps). This one was definitvely the most reliable one.

[Park Seward]

Some good advice from Mr. T.

I have a simular project, a live concert that I want to flow on the CD. My plan is to mix each song and then bounce to disk. I'll import each song to a new session and then adjust the transitions between the songs. I will then cut up the songs where I want the CD to determine the tracks and save each one as a seperate file.

Does that make sense?