I am recording from my synth right now to audio clips.  One typical example is I'll record a 4-measure clip and then I'll want to loop it.  However, there's an audible "pop" in the beginning of the clip, so I have to create a tiny little fade-in to remove it.  Likewise, I create a tiny little fade-out.  I do this by zooming way in and then creating the fades.  This doesn't seem particularly efficient.  Also, once I've zoomed out, there's no way for me to tell if the clip has fades or not, or to adjust it without zooming all the way back in.
 
Is there a better workflow for all of this?  Also, if I apply the fades and then bounce it to a new clip, will that get rid of the popping and then I can just use it as a groove clip?

How are you apply the fades, are you using the clip fade mechanism or are you quite literally applying a physical fade.

I do believe in the preferences section there is an option to snap to zero crossing points.  Make sure this is checked this should remove such clicks and pops when cropping audio clips. 

I'm applying the fade by grabbing the red fade handles and physically moving them. 
 
Currently I play the synth at the exact time the recording starts.  So it goes from not having a clip to having a clip that has a full peak immediately.  Is that the issue?  Maybe I should start recording a second or so before that so it's not completely slamming the clip with the full-blown sound at the beginning? 
 
 

rlared
I am recording from my synth right now to audio clips.  One typical example is I'll record a 4-measure clip and then I'll want to loop it.  However, there's an audible "pop" in the beginning of the clip, so I have to create a tiny little fade-in to remove it.  Likewise, I create a tiny little fade-out.  I do this by zooming way in and then creating the fades.  This doesn't seem particularly efficient.  Also, once I've zoomed out, there's no way for me to tell if the clip has fades or not, or to adjust it without zooming all the way back in.

 
You'll get a click whenever there's a level difference between the loop start and loop end. The greater the level difference, the louder the click. Snapping to zero-crossings is one option, I would suggest trying that first. However, it doesn't always work as expected. The only sure-fire way I know of to insure there's no level difference is to do as you do, by adding a short fade out and/or fade in. Note that one way to speed up workflow is if you have a bunch of loops, you can select them all. Then adding a short fade to one loop will add it to all of them.
 

If I apply the fades and then bounce it to a new clip, will that get rid of the popping and then I can just use it as a groove clip?

Yes, that will solve your problem. However I wrote an extensive article about SONAR techniques I used to create a loop library. It may be TMI but you might find parts of it very helpful, especially the section of how to adjust acidization markers for optimum stretching. The article starts on Page 14 of the Kensington release eZine.

Ooops alert!

Thanks for the notes Craig!  I'll check out the article.
It would be really nice to have the fade-in / fade-out information somehow accessible numerically in the clip properties pane. 

The other alternative is to edit the midi since you are using a synth (softsynth I assume?).  Make sure note-on falls within the measure as well as note-off.  This will help ensure your timing is solid without taking the human element out of it in the rest of the clip.  I always capture midi data as I record softsynths as it is much easier to edit/stretch/quantize etc.

I have 3 old hardware samplers looking at me right now reminding me of the hours I have spent getting loops to work without pops, funny sounding wows, tonal shifts, RMS level drops, etc.
 
Looping is an art.

The simplest way I have, when arranging songs, is to ensure auto crossfades are switched on, select all the audio clips in question, then slip-edit the start points 'left' so that they crossfade with the clip before them. This only works well if you were recording before the start of the clip - a hard punch-in won't work there.
 
As for making loops loop seamlessly... this is something the Loop Construction window should do, by giving you fine control over loop points and crossfade options, before being able to render it down... but instead, the Loop Construction view seems to do a bunch of other things but not actual Loop Construction. Odd.

SimpleM
The other alternative is to edit the midi since you are using a synth (softsynth I assume?).  Make sure note-on falls within the measure as well as note-off.  This will help ensure your timing is solid without taking the human element out of it in the rest of the clip.  I always capture midi data as I record softsynths as it is much easier to edit/stretch/quantize etc.

Yeah soft synths make it easier, however the drawback is I end up tweaking the soft synth or the MIDI data endlessly and lose my inspirational moment.  It's nice to just lay down audio and move on with not being able to tweak it too much.