Reply to Sudden/unusual/annoying controller issue...

All of a sudden (and pretty well out of no where), my VCI100SE is now making weird pops and clicks through the speakers/phones whenever I press the Juggle 1-4, Juggle 5-8 and Shift buttons, but ONLY when a track is playing...

I've been using this controller for the past 2 years and this is the first time I've encountered this issue. I haven't changed any audio latency settings in the past while, so I'm unsure as to what is causing this issue.

Old controller? Old sound card? Has anyone else had this issue?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.