Reducing background noise
Almost everything that makes a recording sound amateur is fixable for free, before you press record. Software noise reduction is a last resort, and it always costs something.
The single most effective change
Get closer to the microphone. Sound falls off with distance while room noise stays roughly constant, so halving your distance improves the ratio of voice to everything else by about six decibels. That is a larger improvement than any plugin, and it costs nothing.
Being closer also lets you reduce input gain, which reduces the noise floor that gain was amplifying. The two effects compound.
Treat the room, not the recording
Reverb is the difference people hear between a home recording and a professional one, and it cannot be removed afterwards — it is mixed into the signal. Every fix has to happen before recording.
- Record in the smallest soft room you have. A wardrobe full of clothes is genuinely one of the best vocal booths available, and it is free.
- Hang a duvet behind you and to the sides. Soft mass absorbs reflections far better than thin foam.
- Avoid bare parallel walls, hard floors and large windows. Those produce the flutter echo that makes a room sound like a room.
- Put something soft on the desk. Hard surfaces reflect straight back into the microphone.
- Add a rug, curtains and a bookshelf to a bad room. Irregular surfaces scatter reflections rather than returning them.
Find and kill continuous noise
Stand still in your recording space and listen for thirty seconds. You will hear things you normally filter out: a computer fan, a fridge compressor, air conditioning, a monitor's whine, traffic through a window.
- Turn off air conditioning and fans while recording. A slightly warm room is a fair trade.
- Move away from a desktop computer, or record a burst and listen for fan noise before committing.
- Close windows, and record away from the road-facing side of a building.
- Choose your time. Early morning and late evening are quieter almost everywhere.
- Turn off phone notifications — both the sound and the vibration, since a vibrating phone on a desk is clearly audible.
Gain discipline
Excessive input gain is a manufactured noise problem. Gain amplifies everything, so a high setting to compensate for sitting too far away amplifies the room along with your voice.
Set gain so the meter sits in the blue with amber peaks, using the volume meter, and get the level by moving closer rather than turning up. On Windows, set Microphone Boost to 0 dB — it is a pure noise amplifier.
What software can and cannot fix
| Problem | Fixable afterwards? |
|---|---|
| Constant hum or hiss | Largely — noise reduction handles steady noise well |
| Room reverb | No. It is part of the signal |
| A door slamming | Only by cutting that section |
| Clipping and distortion | No. The peaks are destroyed at capture |
| Recording too quiet | Yes, though the noise floor comes up with it |
| Plosive thumps | Partially, with a high-pass filter |
Noise reduction works by learning a noise profile and subtracting it. Applied gently it is close to invisible; applied heavily it produces a watery, artificial sound that is worse than the noise. Record thirty seconds of silence in your space — room tone — to give the tool a clean profile to work from.
Cheap things that genuinely help
- Pop filter
- Stops plosive thumps on P and B. A sock over the mic works
- Microphone stand
- Removes desk vibration and handling noise
- Wired headphones
- Prevents backing tracks bleeding into the mic
- A duvet
- The most effective acoustic treatment per pound spent
- A different room
- Free, and often the biggest single improvement
- Volume meterSet gain correctly.
- Microphone testHear your noise floor.
- Best mic settingsPlacement and distance.
- Recording voiceoverWhere room treatment matters most.
More in guides
- Best microphone settings for voice
- Where browser downloads save
- Microphone permissions explained
- Recording without installing anything
See all guides — two kinds of guide: fixing something that is broken, and getting a better result from something that already works.
Questions
What is the fastest way to reduce background noise?
Move closer to the microphone and lower your input gain. That improves the ratio of voice to room noise more than any software, and it is free.
Can software remove background noise completely?
It handles steady noise like hum and hiss well. It cannot remove reverb, and heavy processing produces a watery artificial sound that is often worse than the original noise.
Why does my recording sound echoey?
Room reflections from hard surfaces. Record in a smaller, softer space — soft furnishings, a duvet, or a wardrobe. Reverb cannot be removed after the fact.
Should I use my browser's noise suppression?
For speech, it helps. For singing or sound recording it does real damage, which is why some pages here disable it deliberately.
What is room tone and why record it?
Thirty seconds of silence in your recording space. Noise reduction tools use it to learn what to remove, and editors use it to fill gaps so cuts do not drop to digital silence.
Does an expensive microphone reduce background noise?
Not much, and a sensitive one can capture more of it. Placement and room treatment matter far more than the microphone.