Updated October 2026 · Audio repair and clean-up
Clicks and pops come from a few sources: a loose cable, a digital glitch, a sudden edit, or a mouth or breath sound. Find which one you have by listening closely, then fix the cause where possible. Repair the rest by zooming in and smoothing each click with a very short fade.
A click is a sharp, short sound that interrupts a recording, and a pop is a louder, rounder burst. Both are easy to notice and easy to make worse if you fix them carelessly. The first step is to work out where each one comes from.
A click that appears at the same point every time, or on every take, usually comes from the equipment. A click that happens only when you speak may be a mouth sound or a breath. A click that follows an edit points to a join. A click that appears only when you move the cable is a loose connection. Note the pattern, then fix the source where you can.
Check the cable, the plug and the connection to the interface. Replace a cable that crackles when moved. Turn off any power-saving setting on a USB device that drops out. A digital glitch from a buffer or a driver problem may need the settings adjusted, then the recording repeated.
Repairing every small sound makes a voice sound robotic and unnatural. Breaths, lip sounds and room noise are part of a human voice. Repair only what is distracting. A little natural noise is better than an edit that sounds cut.
Use a pop filter for plosive pops, keep the microphone cable away from power, and record a little room tone before each session. The plosive post covers pops from speech in more detail.
Clicks inside loud speech are hard to repair without leaving a mark. If a recording has many clicks, check the cable and the setup before you spend time on edits. Repairing a bad recording takes much longer than recording it well the first time.
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Loose cables, digital glitches and edits. Mouth sounds and breaths also cause clicks in speech.
Fix the clicks first, then clean the noise, so the cleanup does not spread the repair.
Usually you can reduce it a lot. A pop from a plosive is best prevented with a pop filter.
The fade is too short or the room tone does not match. Smooth the join and match the sound on each side.
