Having to reduce audio noise can be a real pain. And recording clean audio can be tough, especially in noisy environments.
Whether it’s background noise or less-than-ideal equipment, sometimes you end up with hissy audio. Luckily there is a free method to make your track easier on the ears.
Take a listen to what software noise removal can do:
Noisy Audio
Jan 18, 2019 Audacity is free, open source audio editing and recording software with an impressive list of editing and restoration tools. The interface isn’t attractive, but it is easy to navigate. Audacity’s noise-reduction plugin is a one-click solution for removing unwanted room noise, and it. DeskFX comes with an easy-to-use interface that gives you the power to boost your audio. DeskFX audio enhancer software is designed for you to modify and enhance the music and audio played through your speakers and headphones, to provide you with the best possible sound experience. Transform audio playing via your speakers and headphones.
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Clean Audio
Before We Get Started: Room Tone
There is one tip that will help immensely with this process. If you are the one responsible for your recording, remember to record at least 10 seconds of “room tone”.
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Room tone is simply a few seconds of recording the natural noise of the environment in which you’re recording (with no talking, nail filing, heavy breathing, etc.) Even if you can’t hear anything, a sensitive microphone will pick up ventilation noise, computer fans, and more.
Taking “room tone” will serve as a baseline for the software to remove noise. Having a section of room tone in your recording is always a good practice but if you know you’ll be needing to do noise removal later definitely don’t forget! If you don’t have control of the recording process you can still usually find a bit of room tone in a recording.
You can find room tone in a break between takes or time at the beginning or end of the file where nothing much is happening and usually that’s enough to work with for noise removal purposes.
So how is noise removal actually done?
How to Reduce Audio Noise in Audacity
In this economy who wouldn’t take the free option when available? If you aren’t looking to invest in high-end audio software, Audacity is a free piece of software created and maintained by a community of programmers and audio experts.
It accepts a wide range of audio file types and has a perfectly serviceable noise removal tool. The one catch is it’s audio only, so if you’re working with video it may not be the smoothest workflow. More on that later…
Here’s how it works:
How to reduce audio noise in Audacity
- Select your room tone or silent section from your audio
Drag your mouse over an area with no (or little) audio.
- Select Noise Reduction
Under the Effect menu select Noise Reduction
- Get your Noise Profile
Click “Get Noise Profile” and the box will disappear.
- Select your entire audio clip
Select all of the audio that you want that background noise removed. Go to ‘Select’ and then click ‘All.’
- Repeat noise reduction
Go to the Effect menu and select
- Listen to your clip
Make sure your clip doesn’t sound muffled.
What the sliders do:
Noise Reduction: Controls the amount of reduction of your noise volume.
Sensitivity: Controls the range of what noise removal considers noise. The higher this goes the more your actual audio (such as voices) will be affected.
Frequency smoothing: The default setting is setting is 3, settings lower than this tend to favor music and higher settings tend to favor spoken word.
I’ll tell you the same thing I tell my Uncle Mike when we go to White Castle: Go easy on the sliders! Small changes can make a big difference.
Reduce and residue buttons: Reduce is what you’ll want for a good preview. It plays what the audio will sound like with noise removed. If you want to hear exclusively what the noise reduction is taking out, select residue and click preview.
How to clean up audio in video editing
Audacity is great for cleaning up audio for a podcast or music. But for vocal tracks in video, it’s time-consuming to export your audio tracks, clean them up in Audacity, and re-sync your audio and video again.
It’s not impossible but it’s not the most efficient way to remove noise, especially if you’ve already cut up your clips in the timeline.
Camtasia (video editing software) has a noise removal feature built-in which is dead simple. It still works with your room tone but it’s not necessary to select the section on your clip, Camtasia will do that for you.
The sensitivity slider in Camtasia works the same as in Audacity. The “Amount” slider is equivalent to the Noise Reduction slider in Audacity.
By removing noise on the timeline you save the trouble of importing and exporting back and forth from an external program like Audacity, and it’s much easier to make changes quickly.
Next Steps
There are other programs with similar processes such as Adobe Audition and the very powerful Izotope RX5.
These programs edge into the professional realm of audio tools and allow you to go much further with audio sweetening if you’re willing to put the time and money in to learn them.
Just remember while software continues to get better at saving audio, doing everything you can to minimize noise in the initial recording will always be your best bet.
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in 2016 and has since been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.
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Have you found it very annoying to bear with some background noise while playing movies on VLC media player? To part of people, they can even barely hear the soundtrack because the background noise is too overwhelming to distinguish the audio. Thus, it is urgent to solve this big problem. Maybe some have heard of the VLC remove noise feature, which can assist VLC users to address this concern. So in this post, we will teach you how to make VLC reduce background noise. At the same time, more efficient solutions will be introduced to complete VLC video noise reduction.
Part 1: How to Reduce Background Noise in VLC
Since the VLC player is known for its robust playback of multiple media formats, it earns a bunch of users all over the world. Luckily, the VLC media player also provides various functions for users to adjust background noise. Hence, the first solution is counting on the VLC denoise feature. Actually, as an open-source media player, VLC has to confront many difficulties to make it more stable with a series of functionalities. Millions of reasons can also contribute to the VLC runtime error once in a while. Sometimes you maybe should just look for something else more reliable to play media on a computer. Follow the next steps to let VLC remove noise on your computer.
Step 1. Add source video files from the computer.
The VLC media player can open folders to input video files. To do that, click on the first option of the “Media” from the top taskbar. Then select the “Open File” from the submenu to choose a video you need to VLC denoise.
Step 2. Navigate yourself to the “Effects and Filters”.
Click on the “Tools” from the menu bar. Choose the “Effects and Filters” as it usually stays on the top. Or you can use the hotkeys “Ctr + E” to call out the window.
Step 3. Start VLC remove noise procedure.
In this new window, be aware that there are three menu tabs under the window title. Switch to the first one of the “Audio Effects” and access the panel. Tab the 'Equalizer' label below this section. Right under the tab, there is an 'Enable' box and make sure it is checked so that you can adjust the frequency bands.
Step 4. Save the VLC video noise reduction to play videos.
You can play the video while adjusting the decibel settings and the frequency band. At last, when you think it good enough, hit the “Save” button at the bottom of the panel.
Part 2: How to Remove Noise in Movies Permanently with Leawo Video Converter
As you can assume, the method of VLC denoise is not working for the source video all the time. In other words, you need to manual the adjustments every time when you have to play it on VLC. Of course, no one wants to spend such a time to repeat the meaningless procedure over and over again. Is there any solution to undertake the VLC video noise reduction permanently? Surely, there are some methods to fix this problem. However, a powerful tool is involved in this process; Leawo Video Converter will provide the best solution among all the others.
Acting more than a wonderful VLC video noise reduction alternative, Leawo Video Converter features in multiple practical performances while converting videos into all popular output formats, including MP4, H.265 MP4, MKV, H.265 MKV, MOV, etc. You are even able to convert 2D to 3D effects by the advanced technology embedded with the program. The next illustration will guide you through simple steps to denoise media files.
Step 1. Download and install Leawo Video Converter.
Both Mac OS and Windows systems are offered with separated versions. Get the correct one to download and install it onto your computer.
Step 2. Launch the software and import files.
You are allowed to import movie videos by directly pulling them on the top of the home interface. Besides, it is also available to use the “Add Video” button to browse videos then add the one with background noise.
Step 3. Enter video editing setting panel.
Once the movie file is loaded, an information bar will list in the middle of the main interface. You can view some basic file data from the bar, including the output format, resolution, length, and size. At the end of this long strip, there is an icon shaping like editing. Click on it to enter the “Edit” panel.
Step 4. Remove unwanted noise.
It is obvious to see from the left side menu that the “Remove Noise” is located at the bottom of the options. So click on the last button to get inside of this function panel. Switch the 'Remove Noise' option to green, which means turning on the noise reduction.
Step 5. Set the output saving direcory.
Click on the green “Convert” to call out a sidebar where you are able to set the directory for the VLC video noise reduction. Right in the “Save to” box, you can designate the folder with enough space to save your items.
Step 6. Begin the denoise process.
Best Free Audio Noise Reduction Software For Mac Free
The ending operation will be clicking the white “Convert” icon at the bottom of the converting sidebar. You can always get an overview of the noise removal process. Batch denoise conversion can help save more time.
Part 3: How to Remove Noise in Movies Permanently with iMovie
Best Audio Noise Reduction Software For Mac
If you are a Mac user, then you can probably imagine using iMovie to edit video or audio files on your computer. This application is commonly preinstalled with the Mac operating system. However, only a few people get to know well with this native program. As a matter of fact, the iMovie program is another tool to be used as the VLC denoise alternative. You might wonder how to remove background noise using iMovie. Therefore, let me show you the steps.
Step 1. Tab the “File” option from the top banner and choose the “Import Media” to add VLC denoise movies into iMovie. Note that iMovie is picky about media formats. Not all common media videos are compatible with it. That is why sometimes people are asking how to convert WMV videos to iMovie on Mac.
Step 2. Pay attention to the upper menu of the interface, you will find a volume image button among other settings like filters and information. Tab the icon to let the panel switch to the 'Reduce background noise' board. Here you can move the slider to change the amount of reduction. You can remove all the noise by pushing it to 100% of the 'Reduce background noise' choice.
Step 3. Click the upwards arrow button at the right top corner to save the media files from iMovie.
Part 4: Play Denoised Movies with High Audio Enjoyment
VLC noise reduction could be one way to enjoy movies. You can also choose to use Leawo Video Converter tool to get a solid solution for all the videos. However, if you are prone to treat your ears better with denoised movies, your computer should take possession of this Leawo Blu-ray Player for the highest audio quality.
Step 1. Download and install Leawo Blu-ray Player for free.
Not only for users with Windows 7, 7, 8, 8.1, and 10, it is compatible with Mac OS computers as well. Make sure you have the corresponding version of this software.
Step 2. Import the denoised videos.
Some VLC video noise reduction processed movies can be imported into this program. Press the big green “Open File” from the home interface. Choose those converted VLC denoise videos to input into this software.
Step 3. Do the free playback settings.
During the denoised movie playback, there are plenty of parameters available in the setting panel. The player settings can be accessed by pressing the wheel icon from the main interface. It is sitting at the downright corner.
Step 4. Dip into the audio output panel.
For the best result of the audio enjoyment, it looks also important to set the audio output. Tab the “Audio output” from the left labels. Here you can change all the parameters according to your requirements.
Part 5: Conclusion
From this post, VLC denoise solutions from two aspects are demonstrated. Furthermore, another two methods to permanently save those files from redoing VLC noise reduction are also displayed. Regards to the input and output formats, Leawo Video Converter has larger codec supports than iMovie. In the meantime, it has 6 times faster speed comparing to iMovie. Leawo Blu-ray Player is also worth a try due to the outstanding playback experience. You can simply take your home as a cinema when your computer has both software, one to remove noise whereas one to deliver the movie-like effect.