Random audio pops on export

[GenerationMedia]

1. I have recently been hearing audio "pops" after exporting my sequences.  This is not on cuts.  It is in the middle of the sound (usually a persons voice on camera).  There is no pop when listening on the timeline.  I've tried many different export settings with no luck.  The weird thing is ..... it will eventually render without it.  Anyone else experience this?

[GenerationMedia]

More info -- this happens when queing multiple sequences in Media Encoder.  Doesn't seem to happen when I export individually out of premiere.

[solutionboy]

I'm getting this when exporting out from After Effects, via Adobe Media Encoder. The pops were not in any way connected to cuts or effects in the timeline, it was just a steady poppping every second or so. I fixed it by changing the audio type from AAC to MPEG in the AME export settings window. I had also previously changed my audio file in the After Effects project from .mp3 to .wav, so I don't know if it needs both those things in place, or whether changing the audio type would have worked with the .mp3 anway?

[ah_photo]

Check your audio levels in Premiere with Audio Meters.

At any point, is your audio clipping? (hitting the utmost top red part of your audio meters and triggering the clipping indicators at the top?) If so, that's likely the reason why, and you would need to lower your audio or apply a limiter to make sure your audio is not clipping.

[GenerationMedia]

Thanks but the audio isn't clipping.  The reason I think this is a bug is that the pops change location when I export the sequence.  

[solutionboy]

I can confirm the same, no audio is clipping at all in the orginal source composition in After Effects. The pops also just move location for each export. The only thing that seems consistent for each export is that they don't start until after about the first 5 seconds of the video.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi Matchlight,

Sorry. Can you check out your audio sample rate in Sequence Settings? Does it match your audio sample rate on clip properties? Let me know.

Thanks,
Kevin

[Arlingodwin]

This problem needs badly to be addressed by Adobe. It has nothing to do with levels. You can lower your audio levels to where they are nearly imperceptible and there are still pops. You can TURN OFF all your audio tracks and do an export and your "silent" exported audio track will have those same pops and clicks in it. 

[Arlingodwin]

Yes audio settings match. That was one of the first things I checked months ago.
I've been doing this editing thang a while now...the problem has been solved

apparently by putting hard limiters on every single track in the audio mixer.

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hi Arlingodwin,

Thanks for letting me know of your workaround. I'll share the post with the audio engineers.

Kevin

[Michael Grenadier]

what are your source's sampling rates?  And what are the sampling rates of your export?    always use an audio format that's uncompressed like aiffs or .wavs.  

[Averdahl]

What happens if you take on of those problematic sequences and go to File > Export using the settings on the attached image? If you import that audio and place it on the timeline and mute the original audio, can you see any dropouts in the audio wave forms and how does it sound?

I have seen this happen when the hard disk were the original media is slow or when using some audio effects, or both combinations.

[Matchlight.co]

We've been experiencing the same issues. As a small video production house, it's pretty frustrating. However, we've found a cumbersome workaround: 

1) Identify the section of the pop

2) Identify the track in which the pop occurs. Typically it is the track in which dialogue closely follows. 

3) Using audio track mixing, create a series of keyframes to bring the audio down to -999db, where the pop occurs. 

4) Export the project individually from the premiere pro instead of media encoder. 

All of that to say, this works 80% of the time. This issue should be addressed by Adobe ASAP! 

[Viodi]

I am experiencing the same problem as described above. I have a somewhat complicated workflow where I have probably a hundred sequences. Listening to the sequence where the source file is, there is no popping. When listening to the master sequence which is a compilation of sequences, there is random popping. As described by others, there does not appear to be any consistency as to where they will pop in.

At first, they only seemed to be in the rendered output (exported directly from Premiere). Now, they are heard on the timeline as well. This didn't start happening until about 4 or 5 days ago. 

[Michael Grenadier]

Please tell us your system specs: OS version, Premiere version, amount of RAM, Hardware specs including graphics card and your source properties (in particular the sampling rate and bit depth ) and the sequence settings (again the sampling rate and bit depth are probably most important).  And is any of your source audio compressed (mp3,  etc) and does your source sampling and bit depth match your sequence settings?  

And has anything changed in the last week?  Have you done any OS or App updates or changed any hardware?

[DACMarketing41]

I was having the same issue. After about half an hour of playing around with export settings in Audition, I realized the problem was with the Media Player app on my Microsoft Surface Laptop. So I downloaded Windows Media Player Legacy and played the audio, as well as playing it on my iPhone; in both cases, the audio sounded just fine. 

[Michael Grenadier]

Thanks for posting your solution...  That's part of what makes this forum an incredible resource.  

[Michael Grenadier]

just wondering:  Did you try playing the exported file within Audition?  

[DACMarketing41]

Yes, it was exported in Audition. I tried both .wav and .mp3 files and was still experiencing the popping. I tried changing other settings within the Audition export menu, but nothing I tried made the popping sound go away. I then decided to listen to the exported file using a different media player; sure enough, the media player was the issue. 

[Michael Grenadier]

sorry if I wasn't clear...  wondering if the exported file, brought back in to Audition and played withing audition had the popping?

[DACMarketing41]

Oh, I misunderstood. Yes, the file sounds perfectly fine once brought back into Audition and played. 

[samw70610855]

has anyone found a solution to this? im trying to export a h264 from AE and pops are appearing on the audio after 35 minutes i have no idea why

[Michael Grenadier]

what are your source properties.    Try exporting the audio only in an uncompressed format like 48k 16 bit aiff and if that exports properly, replace the pre-existing audio in the comp.

[Richard van den Boogaard]

Are you able to export from AE in a non-compressed intermediary format with a non-lossy audio codec (e.g. AIFF or WAV)? This may solve the audio popping. Next, you can re-encode the exported file to h264 in Media Encoder and throw away the intermediary export afterwards.

Hope this helps.

[Michael Grenadier]

not only is the intermediate format useful to isolate problems caused by the compression in the source file, sometimes weirdness in the accompanying video can cause audio issues...  Never seen it in AfterEffects, but have seen it happen in some editing programs over the years...    And you might want to post in the AfterEffects Forum rather than the Premiere Forum...  Keep us posted.