Need help to get rid of random clicks and pops!

[Helge Krabye]

I am using the Mbox2Pro with ProTools 7.4cs5 on a MacBookPro 17" 2,4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 2 Gbyte RAM, MacOS 10.4.11. Both the PT Sessions and audio files on a LaCie Rugges 16Gbyte Firewire drive with more than 60 Gbyte empty space. No other applications are open or running.

The last few weeks, all my mixes have been ruined by this problem:

Small random clicks and pops occur when I play back the Session or bounce it to disk. These distortions are highly visible on the actual waveform, and they look like deep and short cuts or simply that the line in the round shape of a waveform is suddenly doing a vertical jump in it's level (resulting in high frequency pops or clicks). It is possible to edit (with pen) some of these clicks, but it's a tiresome job that I really don't want to do.

The Session has only two single stereo tracks (and a Master track) playing back in 16 bit and 44,1kHz. I have inserted the T-RackS 1.3 eq-plugin on the audio channels, and as far as I have been informed, this plugin is safe. No audio is clipping (going above 0dbfs). At first, I couldn't even play back a second before PT warned me that I needed to adjust the settings in the Playback Engine. Since this had almost no effect, I searched the knowledge base and found out that I should turn off both the Airport and also the Nework output connection (in System Settings), which I did. The Session then seemed to play back ok. However, I discovered these small clicks and pops...

As I said, I have experimented with different settings for the playback engine in ProTools, both high buffers and low buffers, but that doesn't have any effect.

This is a big problem for me, because I have a tight schedule and need to finish several mixes (doing Mastering for CD release) within the next couple of days... I really need to find the reason behind this problem. and I hope somebody can help!

Helge Krabye


MacBookPro 2,4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 2 GB RAM.
ProTools 7.4 (latest cs update)
Mbox2 Pro with the LaCie rugged Firewire 160 Gbyte disk plugged into the Firewire 400 port on the Mbox2 Pro
MacOS 10.4.11