Ticking sound on playback

Atlplasma · « **on:** 23 Jul 2009, 08:32 pm »

(I posted this question on the discless circle but got no response.

Hoping it generates something here.)

I just finished setting up a Mac Mini as a music server. On playback I've been running into tracks that have a tick, tick, tick electrical sound in the background. Whenever I've detected this issue, I've reloaded the disc and the noise seems to go away. Out of curiosity just wondering if anyone else has encountered this issue and determined why it happens or how to avoid it.

Steve

Atlplasma · « **Reply #1 on:** 10 Aug 2009, 03:24 pm »

Still hearing the ticking sound. Curiously, it only seems to show up on piano tracks. Deleting and reimporting the CD doesn't seem to make a difference. I'm beginning to think it's an issue with my external drive. I have another drive in the closet and may try swapping it to see if the issue goes away.

low.pfile · « **Reply #2 on:** 10 Aug 2009, 05:11 pm »

atlplasma.

Idea: Copy the song with the issue to your built in hard drive first or re-rip it to your macmini drive. then play that version. you can edit the song title to keep track.

funkmonkey · « **Reply #3 on:** 10 Aug 2009, 07:15 pm »

I've heard the ticking but only through iTunes, and with compressed files. I thought they were artifacts. Rips of the same discs (using Max) to FLAC there is no clicking/ticking... same drive, same computer, same HDD. I have not tried a comparison of lossless rips in iTunes vs. Mp4... I first noticed the clicks on Led Zeppelin BBC, but they have shown up on some Jazz and other stuff as well. I do not remember if I had error correction (in iTunes) on the first time or not, but it has been on since I re-ripped Zep BBC and seems to help a bit, but some ticks are still present.

Atlplasma · « **Reply #4 on:** 10 Aug 2009, 07:49 pm »

Hi Greg:

I'm importing my files using Apple Lossless with error correction turned on. Maybe it is a software issue and not related to the drive. First up, I'll try low.file's suggestion to copy some problem tracks to the local drive and see whether the problem disappears. If it proves to be an iTunes issue, I'll check out Max.

Also...

How are you importing hi-rez from disc? I have some SACDs and DVD-A that I'd like to pull in. Will Max work with those? (My Mini has a superdrive.)

Steve

funkmonkey · « **Reply #5 on:** 10 Aug 2009, 09:31 pm »

Hi Steve,

I don't own any SACDs yet, so that hasn't been an issue. I am hesitant to open that can of worms for fear of a buying spree.

But I am pretty sure that Max will handle SACD, not sure about DVD-A though... You can use it just as a ripper and set it to output Apple Lossless directly into iTunes. The guys over in the High-Rez circle here on AC could help you out with that, much better than my guesses... I know David (Rydenfan) uses Max (he turned me on to it) on a Mac, and I think he also set up a Mini as a server in the last few months. Eventually I will get there too.

Cheers,
Greg

daddydoom · « **Reply #6 on:** 13 Aug 2009, 11:16 pm »

atlplasma

I am having the same problem using Max ripping to aiff files. I thought it was just me hearing things. It's good to know other people are hearing it too. Have tried a different hdd and it did'nt help.

Tried re-rip and it helped sometimes. It seems to be happening on about 10% of my rips.
It sure would be nice to find out what is wrong. The noise can sure ruin a good song

Atlplasma · « **Reply #7 on:** 14 Aug 2009, 08:41 pm »

Quote from: daddydoom on 13 Aug 2009, 11:16 pm

atlplasma

I am having the same problem using Max ripping to aiff files. I thought it was just me hearing things. It's good to know other people are hearing it too. Have tried a different hdd and it did'nt help.

Tried re-rip and it helped sometimes. It seems to be happening on about 10% of my rips.
It sure would be nice to find out what is wrong. The noise can sure ruin a good song

Are you ripping your files to a built-in or external disc? I'm using an old external drive and playing back over USB.

daddydoom · « **Reply #8 on:** 14 Aug 2009, 11:23 pm »

atlplasma

I am using a brand new Western Digital hdd. It is USB. My Mac pro only has 1 firewire port and using it for my Apogee duet. Which I like very much.The power supply is plugged into my power conditioner. I don't think it has anything to do with the hdd.

What type of file are you ripping to.

Matt

Atlplasma · « **Reply #9 on:** 15 Aug 2009, 02:59 am »

Quote from: daddydoom on 14 Aug 2009, 11:23 pm

atlplasma

I am using a brand new Western Digital hdd. It is USB. My Mac pro only has 1 firewire port and using it for my Apogee duet. Which I like very much.The power supply is plugged into my power conditioner. I don't think it has anything to do with the hdd.

What type of file are you ripping to.

Matt

Hi Matt:

I rip to Apple Lossless. Maybe I'll try AIFF to see if the encoding format is affecting the playback.

Steve

rancew · « **Reply #10 on:** 23 Aug 2009, 07:44 pm »

Just noticed this thread and it caught my eye as I'm having (I think) a similar problem.

I'm ripping to a NAS (Drobo/Droboshare) using iTunes. Basically, some of my ripped CD's have a track or two with a 'tick' or 'pop' sound - much akin to the 'pop' sound made by records - that consistently occurs at 10-12 seconds into the track. I tried re-ripping, but it still shows up on the same tracks.

What's really frustrating is this: I hadn't tried re-ripping any CD's for a little while, but just today thought I'd give it a go as I hadn't tried it since the latest version of iTunes came out. On the disc I just tried, the 'pop' sound is there on every track! What gives??? Any ideas???

Atlplasma · « **Reply #11 on:** 26 Aug 2009, 06:08 pm »

This issue is still a puzzle. I have noticed that the "ticking" noise seems to happen only on classical recordings (usually solo piano). The last few tracks are most likely to become noisy. Reimporting the cd does not resolve the problem.

Strange.

low.pfile · « **Reply #12 on:** 26 Aug 2009, 06:35 pm »

Quote from: Atlplasma on 26 Aug 2009, 06:08 pm

This issue is still a puzzle. I have noticed that the "ticking" noise seems to happen only on classical recordings (usually solo piano). The last few tracks are most likely to become noisy. Reimporting the cd does not resolve the problem.

Strange.

I am wondering if the ticking is in the sound file or added during playback. If you don't have the program Audacity ( http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ ) an open source sound editor, which shows you waveforms of the music, maybe you would be interested in downloading it. Then you could look at the song waveform and see if the sound file has the ticks.

You didn't mention the rest of your component chain. If you are using an external DAC, could there be an issue with the MacMini DAC pairing? If you have a DAC, you could bypass it and listen to the MacMini headphone out just to see if the ticking is there too.

Ed

Atlplasma · « **Reply #13 on:** 26 Aug 2009, 06:57 pm »

Quote from: low.pfile on 26 Aug 2009, 06:35 pm

Quote from: Atlplasma on 26 Aug 2009, 06:08 pm
This issue is still a puzzle. I have noticed that the "ticking" noise seems to happen only on classical recordings (usually solo piano). The last few tracks are most likely to become noisy. Reimporting the cd does not resolve the problem.

Strange.

I am wondering if the ticking is in the sound file or added during playback. If you don't have the program Audacity ( http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ ) an open source sound editor, which shows you waveforms of the music, maybe you would be interested in downloading it. Then you could look at the song waveform and see if the sound file has the ticks.

You didn't mention the rest of your component chain. If you are using an external DAC, could there be an issue with the MacMini DAC pairing? If you have a DAC, you could bypass it and listen to the MacMini headphone out just to see if the ticking is there too.

Ed

Hi Ed:

I'll try Audacity as soon as I get a moment. In the meantime, I did plug in a set of headphones, reset the Midi configuration, and played back a couple of the "noisy" tracks. Both had the ticking noise.

My set up is a first generation Mac Mini to Gigaworks 24/192 DAC (via USB) feeding to a Yamaha RV-X2700 receiver.

Russell Dawkins · « **Reply #14 on:** 26 Aug 2009, 07:06 pm »

I'm on thin ice here since I don't know your set up, but in my experience ticking can be the result of mis-matched clock signals and can be resolved by making sure the source and destination are running off the same clock, or the destination is set to get its clock signal from the source. Is this possible?

Atlplasma · « **Reply #15 on:** 26 Aug 2009, 07:21 pm »

I followed Ed advice and downloaded Audacity. When I imported and played a problem track, the ticking noise showed up on level meters for both channels. (I don't know anything about this software, so my terminology may be off in describing the activity on the interface.)

Steve

low.pfile · « **Reply #16 on:** 26 Aug 2009, 08:31 pm »

Steve,
I was suggesting Audacity to see the ticks visually. Trust me I am no sound engineer, so I don't know the technical terms either. I thought, depending on the loudness you would see regularly spaced spikes in the graph.
I made a click track and overlayed it over a song in Audacity(below) to show you what I meant but if you saw it on the VU meters that probably confirms that the ticks are in the sound file and not being added by your DAC/amp.

So now the question is how are the ticks getting added? If you have access to another system to rip music, maybe you can rip the album with the problem, copy the file to you Mini, then import into itunes. confirm that it's your DVD drive or Hard Drive that is causing this. I've ripped with an old powerbook, a macbook pro and a G5 PPC and never had modified/corrupted files (knock wood)--about 700 CDs so far.

Shaded section shows the added simulated ticks.

Atlplasma · « **Reply #17 on:** 27 Aug 2009, 01:54 pm »

I think the ticking mystery is solved. I followed low.pfile's advice and copied one of the problem discs into iTunes on another computer. It played fine. I then copied the files onto a thumb drive and then imported into iTunes on the Mini. No ticking sound on the previously noisy tracks. It appears that the Mini's internal drive is the source of the problem. The curious part is that only some tracks on some discs are affected.

Steve

Atlplasma · « **Reply #18 on:** 15 Sep 2009, 02:29 pm »

Just a bit more on this issue. The problem appears to occur when I use the Mini's internal drive and a disc with lots of tracks. This would explain why so many of my vintage classical discs exhibit the "ticking" problem when, say, track 35 starts playing. A lot of my older cds come with "bonus" tracks, and I suspect that the problem is related to where these tracks are stored on the disc.

I considered buying an external dvd/cd drive but opted not to since only a few discs need to be re-imported. Instead, I've started burning the problem cds to my iMac and then using Home Sharing to move the tracks to the Mini over my wireless network. It's a little labor intensive and slow, but I'm not in a big hurry.

Steve

funkmonkey · « **Reply #19 on:** 15 Sep 2009, 04:30 pm »

Thanks for the follow up, Steve... the ticks coming from the drive, makes sense. You could get an external drive for ripping... supposed to be quicker than the internal one and costs about 50 bucks... just an idea, some people swear by them. I haven't gone down that path yet, my old iMac died before the drive did.