How to Remove Background Music and Noise but Keep the Voice

To keep the voice and lose what's behind it, you need voice isolation: a model that knows what a voice sounds like and separates it from everything else (traffic, a fan, room echo and background sound). It works best when the voice is louder than what's behind it; a song playing at full volume over quiet speech is the hardest case.

How do I clean a recording?

1. Open Clean-up (or try the free background noise remover).
2. Record up to 30 minutes in the browser, or upload audio or video (up to 250 MB and 60 minutes).
3. Leave Even out the level on: it brings the voice to a steady −16 LUFS, the usual podcast level. Turn on Shorten the long gaps if you want a tighter edit.
4. Choose MP3 or WAV, run it, and compare before and after.

What can't it do?

• Bring back a voice that isn't there. If the music drowns the speech, there's little to recover.
• Keep the music and remove the voice. Clean-up keeps the voice. For a video you're dubbing, Dubbing can keep the background while it re-voices the speech.
• Fix distortion. A clipped, distorted recording stays distorted.

Why does my cleaned voice sound robotic?

Over-processing: when noise and voice share the same frequencies, aggressive removal takes part of the voice with it. Record as cleanly as you can (a quiet room, the microphone close), and clean up as a rescue, not a habit.

How do I record cleaner audio in the first place?

• The smallest, softest room you have (a wardrobe full of clothes is a classic).
• The microphone a hand's width from your mouth.
• Fans, notifications and the fridge off.
• Check the result against your platform's loudness target with the loudness checker.

What does it cost?

Clean-up is charged by the minute of audio, in the same credits as everything else, and the cost shows before you start. Results are kept in your files.