Remove noise from phone recordings, fast
Phone recording plagued by hum, wind or background hiss? Learn how to remove noise and isolate speech for a clearer recording.
Why phone recordings get noisy
Phones record everywhere: cafés, streets, rooms with a fan running. Their small mics pick up both your voice and the hum, wind and background hiss. The result is a recording that's hard to use for a video, podcast or documentation.
Noise removal is a kind of separation: instead of splitting vocals from music, you separate the sound you want to keep (speech) from the unwanted noise.
How to clean up a recording
- Upload the recording to music separation (mp3, wav, m4a, or the audio inside an mp4 video).
- Choose 2-stem mode: split the voice out of everything else in the recording (background, noise).
- Process and preview: the isolated voice layer usually stands out far more clearly than the noisy original.
A dedicated noise removal tool is still being finished at Tách Nhạc, not live yet. For now, the music separation tool can already isolate a voice from the background in 2-stem mode, good enough for many phone recordings.
| Format | Notes |
|---|---|
| mp3 | Most common, lossy compression |
| wav | Uncompressed, highest quality |
| m4a | Usually from iPhone, good quality |
| mp4 (audio) | Audio extracted from video |
Tips to record cleaner in the first place
No tool can rescue a truly bad recording, so prevent problems up front:
- Record somewhere sheltered from wind, with little echo.
- Keep the mic close to your mouth and avoid touching the body.
- Turn off fans and air-conditioning while recording if you can.
- Record a few test seconds and listen back before the real take.
Combine good recording with noise removal afterwards and you'll get a clean recording good enough for most needs.
Primary sources
Can noise removal save a really bad recording?
Not entirely. It noticeably reduces background noise but can't restore clipped audio or a recording that's far too quiet. Recording well in the first place still matters most.
Does it also remove things like clapping or street noise?
The current tool works best on continuous background noise (hum, wind, fans). More specialized removal kinds are in active development at Tách Nhạc.