Few moments are more deflating than the instant you hit play on your latest recording and find it cluttered with distracting background noise. You had everything set up perfectly for the interview. The video looks pristine. But the audio is…less than stellar.

In a perfect world, you’d avoid this situation entirely by preparing a noise-free environment for recording. As anyone who has produced audio or video content knows, though, that’s not always possible. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to clean up the audio after the fact.

In this article, we’ll explore ways to keep noise out of your recordings in the first place — and how to remove background noise from audio when it barges in.

Reducing Noise Before Hitting Record

Noise suppression is the best technique for producing clean audio and video recordings. To give yourself the best chance of producing immaculate audio, prepare your environment in advance. Here are a few key tips for establishing a noise-free, studio-quality setting.

1. Choose the Best Available Room

In large part, the sound quality of your final recording is determined by the acoustics and noise level of your space. You can save yourself some audio cleanup time on the back end by choosing the best room to conduct your recording.

In practice, that means a room that’s:

• Free of street-facing windows
• Not home to noisy appliances
• Well insulated
• Far from loud roommates, co-workers, or neighbors
• Filled with sound-absorbing materials like soft furniture, curtains, and rugs

2. Check Room Tone

You may be used to certain sounds around your office, home, or co-working space. Maybe it’s dogs barking, a plane that flies by every hour on the hour, or just the sound of laptop keys clacking. But to improve background audio, you have to know what you’re working with. Once you’ve chosen your quiet space, you must figure out its tone. 

Start by setting up your equipment just as you would for the final recording. Then, take a 10- or 20-second audio recording of the empty space. Listen to the recording with headphones so you can clearly hear the sounds in the room. Take note of anything you hear — the air conditioner, an electrical hum, or kids in the next room, for instance. 

Next, take a brief recording of your vocal intro. Listen back and note how your voice sounds. Is it distorted by any new ambient noise? Do you sound far off or echoey? Again, take note so you can tweak your settings in the next step.

3. Adjust Your Environment

Now that you’ve experienced the tone of your room on a recording, you can make adjustments to improve it. Maybe you need to turn off the air conditioner during the interview or make sure the kids are out of the house. If you have a noisy coworker in the office next door, you can give them a heads-up before the recording session begins.

For issues with echo, consider adding extra sound-absorbing materials to the room. Close the curtains, add a soft chair, or drape a blanket over any nearby hard surfaces. 

If you hear a hum, your recording equipment may be plugged into the same circuit as a demanding appliance. Try plugging into a different outlet or shutting off other equipment during your recording.

How to Minimize Background Noise While Recording

Unless you’re in a recording studio, chances are your environment won’t be perfect. Still, you can take a few steps to reduce background sound and get a clear recording. 

1. Make Sure Everyone Is Speaking Clearly

Sometimes, the best tricks are the simplest ones. When you start recording, make sure everyone is speaking clearly and enunciating well. That way, you can minimize any “noise” from mumbling — a problem that’s much harder to clear up in post-production.

2. Keep the Mic Close

Background noise is much harder to overcome if your conversation is quiet or distant. Make sure your microphone, smartphone, or other recording device is close to the speaker or centered between multiple speakers to capture their words loud and clear. 

Keep in mind that a close mic can also mean noisy consonants like popping p sounds. To minimize those types of disruptions, consider placing a pop filter — a thin piece of fabric that catches gusts of air —  between the mic and the speaker. 

3. Use the Rev Mobile App to Record

Whether you’re on the go or just need a simple, high-quality way to capture audio, you can use the Rev mobile app to capture the conversation. The Rev app even allows you to transcribe your conversation in real time or submit it later for AI or human transcription. Either way, you’ll have a high-quality recording with minimal background noise, right from your iPhone or Android device.

4. Consider Investing in Better Recording Equipment

If you need your recordings to be as professional as possible, then it may be worth investing in a few equipment upgrades or additions. Using a dynamic microphone can improve your speech-to-noise ratio, for instance. Likewise, some recording software comes with built-in tools for noise filtration, which you can turn on during recording. You can also use a multichannel mixer to separate audio tracks for greater clarity and easier editing (a great tool for court reporters as well as video editors).

How to Clean Up Audio in Post

Even when you’ve set up the perfect home or office studio, you can’t avoid all mishaps. Sometimes, background noise will have its way. When that happens, you need to know how to remove background noise from video and audio recordings. Here are a few tips to help you clean up your audio.

1. Make Basic Edits With Built-in Tools

If you recorded the conversation on your computer or phone, you may be able to go back and adjust the settings on the recording to help remove background sound. Many newer devices are pretty good at isolating voices and reducing ambient noise while recording, but they’re not perfect. 

The Voice Memo app on iPhone and Mac, for instance, includes an “Enhance Recording” option in the sound settings for each recording. Some Windows computers have a similar “Noise Suppression” option in the Hardware and Sound section of the Control Panel. Specific recording apps may also have built-in basic tools for background noise suppression, even after recording.

2. Use Professional Audio Editing Tools

In some cases, you may need more robust editing tools to remove background sounds from recordings. We’ll list out some later in this article, but know that pricing and capabilities vary significantly. It’s worth doing some comparison research and testing out software with free trials when possible to see which works best for your situation. 

3. Add Background Music

If you can’t quite filter out the noise completely, there’s always another option: Add a little background music. Of course, this depends on the nature of your audio or video project and whether music would fit, but it’s a good solution in cases where music won’t detract from the overall quality.

Types of Background Noise

When seeking to prevent or remove background sound from audio, it’s important to understand the different types of noise you might come across. The following four types of distortion, sometimes referred to as color noise, are common in audio recordings:

• Broadband noise: This is the most familiar type of background noise — the hissing or buzzing you hear from sounds across a wide spectrum of frequencies. Broadband noise can come from a variety of sources. 
• Narrowband noise: This noise type is more distinct, occurring over a smaller range of frequencies. Most often, you’ll encounter a hum from a poorly grounded electrical circuit.
• Impulse noise: These are the pops and crackles that occur from different momentary noises in a recording, such as loud consonants, feedback, or the sound of plugging in or unplugging equipment.
• Irregular noise: Irregular noises are the incidental sounds that come and go within your specific environment, whether it’s rain on the window or the sound of a neighbor through the wall.

Audio Resources to Consider

To effectively reduce background noise in audio or video after the fact, you need to keep top-notch noise reduction software or apps on hand. Here are a few of the best options available, some of which use AI to enhance and simplify the process.

• Audacity: This free software is a great entry-level option for removing background noise from audio recordings. It’s open-source and compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux — plus, it’s known for its simple, accessible user interface.
• Adobe Audition: For a more robust, complete noise-reduction solution, it doesn’t get much better than Adobe Audition. Many users have restored heavily distorted audio files for a clean and crisp audio experience. 
• Krisp: This Windows 10 app stands out as a real-time solution for noise cancellation as you record. It uses AI and machine learning to zero in on the speaker’s voice and filter out everything else for a clear, focused recording that requires minimal editing.
• iZotope RX: RX allows you to fine-tune audio recordings to an incredible degree. Its advanced spectral analysis can isolate and remove noises, and you can even filter out breath or improve vocal intonation.

Your Platform Matters

The software you use to record audio and video can make a huge difference in the end product. Software like Adobe Audition and Krisp are equipped with a range of tools for producing high-quality recordings out of the gate.

Beyond the software, hardware is also a significant factor. You’ll almost always get more background noise on an iPhone or other smartphone mic compared to recording via a dedicated recorder and microphone. Plus, editing capabilities will be more limited on a small smartphone interface, though it is possible to accomplish some impressive video editing on an iPhone.

Nonetheless, recording on a laptop or desktop will typically give you more control over the software — especially for multi-track recordings — and the ability to plug in more mics or other recording equipment. Above all, though, the microphones you use will have the biggest impact on your audio quality.

Cut Through the Noise With Rev

With today’s recording equipment and editing tools, it’s possible to take background noise out of audio at every stage of the recording and editing process. Still, sometimes even the best-laid plans backfire, and you end up with a rough recording. In that case, you can still rely on a tool like Rev to filter out the noise and create a clear, accurate transcript anyone can read.

Our automated transcription services are 90% accurate, and when all else fails, you can rely on our human transcription and captioning to produce 99% precise copy to go with even the most garbled recordings. Learn more about our closed captioning and transcription services, and give it a try today.