Having trouble getting rid of noise in your audio, but don’t have the cash to spare for a payware noise reduction plug-in?
You might find what you need in this selection of the best free noise reduction plug-ins available. You’d be surprised that they’re capable of what they can do, with a variety of functions that can deliver performance that is at least equal to that of their paid counterparts.
That's where noise reduction plug-ins come in. Noise reduction plug-ins are great for music recordings, as well as video post-production, and can rid you of hisses, hums, wind, and other unwanted sounds. Sweetwater stocks many types and brands of noise suppressor plug-ins.
Let’s take a closer look!
Free Noise Reduction Plugins
Also check out our Top VST Plugin Roundup
ReaFIR by Cockos
Cockos is known primarily for Reaper, an excellent shareware–practically freeware–DAW that can stand toe-to-toe with the best fully-fledged DAWs costing hundreds of dollars more. The company also has a line of very capable plug-ins, one of which is the ReaFir dynamics processor.
Specs and useful features
An FFT-based plug-in, ReaFIR is a dynamics processor that pulls off some need tricks. The “FIR” in the name stands for “Finite Impulse Response”, which refers to a variety of functions revolving around FFT spectrum analysis.
Most of these functions have to do with EQing and dynamics processing, both of which are typically employed in noise reduction circuitry. But ReaFIR can do more than clean up hissy signals. It also serves as a gate, a compressor, and a dedicated EQ. It is especially capable of precise EQing and compression, so you could expect to get much more use out of it than from most any noise reduction plug-in on the market.
User impressions
Unsurprisingly, many users found ReaFIR to be more effective at removing noise than many other dedicated noise reduction plug-ins. The onboard features makes it a very capable and versatile EQ that can be used for ultra-precise sound shaping and even for mastering. In fact, many users have found it to be useful at various stages of the production and mixing processes.
Bottom-line
ReaFIR stands apart from most other noise reduction plug-ins with its wealth of pro features and flexible capabilities. Even if this were a paid plug-in, we would still recommend adding it to your arsenal of sonic enhancement tools.
Redunoise by Voxengo
Voxengo Redunoise is a high-resolution noise reduction plug-in that provides a wide range of controls for reducing and eliminating noise. A comprehensive noise reduction system that goes beyond the capabilities of your average noise-ridding plug-in, it is a versatile solution that should find many uses in your productions.
Redunoise is especially effective at dealing with noisy single tracks, although it will work on full mixes as well. Results are always musically pleasant, which is rarely the case with broadband noise reduction solutions.
Specs and useful features
High-resolution spectrum analysis is the key to the effectiveness of Redunoise. This feature precisely identifies the offending area of audio material, enabling the plug-in to eliminate it without affecting the rest of the signal.
Redunoise comes with two flavors of filtering: analog-prototype and linear-phase. Between these two, you can handle pretty much any flavor of noise, from fairly simple hisses to more complex noises that cover different bands of the audio spectrum. There is even a noise learn function for quick and easy cleanup of audio material.
User impressions
Redunoise has found plenty of avid fans among those that routinely work with outdoor recordings. Useful for reducing many types of background noise, the plug-in is also effective at separating sounds according to frequency range.
Surprisingly, some users found Redunoise to be quite an effective EQ unit. With its many controls suited for creative EQing, Redunoise is way more than just your run-of-the-mill noise reduction plug-in.
Bottom-line
Redunoise is a versatile noise reduction plug-in that has some surprising tricks up its sleeve, particularly in the realm of creative EQing. Although it is free, it definitely measures up to even some of the best payware offerings available.
Sound Recovery by Bitsonic
If you have ever had to struggle with restoring signals from poorly recorded or severely degraded audio, Bitsonic Sound Recovery might be exactly what you need, and for free. It’s designed specifically for repairing extremely low-quality audio.
Sound Recovery fills a gap in the audio editing world that most EQs and noise reduction systems simply cannot fill. With a unique set of features onboard, this plug-in should find value among audio restorers and even forensic professionals.
Specs and useful features
Sound Recovery essentially recreates mid-frequency content from low-frequency harmonics. By adding subtle levels of harmonic distortion, this process makes audio clearer and more understandable, even with most of the mid-frequency content missing.
Sound Recovery also has a multiband denoiser feature that makes it a very capable noise reduction solution. Effective at reducing the noise from the low-mid and mid-high frequencies, this provides a much more subtle alternative to heavy-handed EQing that often thrashes the entire audio signal.
Other features let you further restore audio with depth and precision. The “split freq” feature lets you define the most troublesome frequency range, while the dedicated “recovery” feature adds even more distortion for enhanced clarity.
User impressions
Sound Recovery is a fairly capable noise reduction plug-in. The low pass filter and the denoiser feature effectively reduce noise in a broad range of frequencies. But most users seem to use the plug-in for restoring lost audio content, which is hardly surprising given its capabilities in that area.
Bottom-line
Sound Recovery might not be your first choice if you need a comprehensive range of noise reduction features. But if your focus is on restoring the intelligibility of recorded audio, this plug-in is a must-have.
Noise Reduction by Christian Budde
Christian Budde Noise Reduction is a spectral noise gate designed for removing unwanted noise from a variety of audio sources. By targeting specific frequency ranges, its spectral gate effectively filters out noise with a fair degree of customizability over attack and release times.
Specs and useful features
Noise Reduction goes beyond the capabilities of most spectral noise gate plug-ins by offering a good range of customization options. The soft knee control is fully adjustable over a very wide range, so you can avoid many of the sonic anomalies that other spectral noise gates impart to audio material.
The plug-in comes with a few different options for FFT sizes, and you could even choose from many window functions.
Noise Reduction sets itself apart from other plug-ins of its kind with its continuous and consistent characteristic. The plug-in’s various features let you clean up only the offending bands of noise without introducing artifacts that are often more bothersome than hissing and crackling.
Noise elimination plug-ins generally have low CPU requirements, but Noise Reduction places especially low demands on computer resources. You could easily strap on as many instances as you need for your various tracks, and still have enough CPU power for your other plug-ins.
User impressions
Users found Noise Reduction to be effective at getting rid of noise from problematic soundboard recordings and audio transferred from tape. For many users, the ability to identify the noise from a quiet section of audio is useful for treating the rest of the material.
Bottom-line
Like all plug-ins of its kind, Noise Reduction is most effective when used sparingly at moderate settings. It won’t win any awards for precision and total control, but it will be enough to get the job done in most cases.
FFT Tools by Smart Electronix
Smart Electronix FFT Tools turns to the graphics world for inspiration in dealing with unwanted noise in audio material. Based on the image-processing technique employed in graphics programs such as Adobe’s Photoshop, it utilizes spectral-based processing along with a slew of intriguing features.
FFT Tools makes it possible to clear out the hash from specific audio frequency ranges while leaving the surrounding frequencies unscathed. The plug-in can also be used to warp sound in numerous interesting ways, many of which go beyond the capabilities of even dedicated sound-mangling plug-ins.
Specs and useful features
One of the most intriguing features of FFT Tools is “Warp”, which swaps high and low frequencies with each according to a defined frequency band. The results can be pretty wild, to say the least, although moderate settings can produce more musical results.
Noise reduction functions are mostly handled by the “Levels” feature, which gives you a good degree of control over the spectral dynamics. This feature lets you liven up dull audio or remove background noise equally well.
FFT Tools also comes with a “Kontrast” control for saturating specific bands of the frequency range. If more robotic sounds are your thing, the aptly-named “Robotizer” should find plenty of use in your productions.
User impressions
Most people seem to use FFT Tools for generating weird textures and alien-sounding sonic landscapes. Although it does a decent enough job at noise reduction, it seems better suited for creative sound design than cleaning up noisy material.
Bottom-line
FFT Tools probably won’t be the first thing that comes to mind if you need to clean up noisy audio. Although it will work as a noise reducer in a pinch, this plug-in is more useful as a tool for generating unusual sounds and textures.
Did some audio recording and ended up having a noisy recording? You might still be able to save the audio with these restoration techniques, so don’t throw that audio away yet.
Perhaps you had a video recorded and the audio is so noisy that you are looking for how to remove noise from the video.
In this post, I’ll show you a few methods to reduce noise from your audio or video
Before I start with the article, I just want to introduce you to a software called Drum Xtract. It’s a software that helps remove musical elements from an audio recording (usually drums). And can be used to tighten up sound elements within a mix as well. You can read about it here: How to remove drums from a song.
We will go through these few topics:
- How to reduce noise with Audacity for free.
- Remove noise from video recordings.
- Using a denoiser VST with Adobe Audition and other softwares.
- Advanced noise reduction techniques with iZotope RX.
- Best practices when it comes to recording audio outdoors.
First of all, you must understand that it’s impossible to remove 100% of the noise from a recorded audio. It’s not possible. Even if it is, your recorded audio will most likely be unusable, due to the diminished quality.
Many people are also looking for quick ways to remove vocals from audio. While that’s not entirely impossible to do, it usually renders not so good results.
I suggest people who want to remove vocals from music to buy a karaoke version music instead.
Alright, now that you’re ready, let’s go!
Using Audacity To Do Noise Reduction for FREE
Audacity – A freeware audio editor that every producer should have installedAudacity is a popular freeware audio software that runs on the PC or Mac. It’s free.
It’s an amazing piece of software that does nearly everything a good audio editor like Adobe Audition can do. It does noise reduction really well too.
If you’re looking for a quick solution to reduce some noise from one or two audio files, Audacity would be good for you.
Step 1 – Drag Audio Into Audacity
Get your audio into Audacity. This is easily done by simply drag and drop your audio file into Audacity.
Audacity accepts audio file formats such as wav, mp3 and more. For editing, you’ll want to edit in wav. I’ve used an interview audio recording to illustrate the steps to come.
Free Vst Noise Generator
Step 2 – Learn The Unwanted Noise
Select the background noiseFind a section of the audio that only has the background audio.
Generally, the longer you can find the better. What we are doing is to select a section of background noise which we want reducing from the entire audio recording.
For my case, I found a fair 1-second background audio in the beginning portion of the audio recording before the interview speech came in.
Choose noise removalAfter selecting, hover over to ‘Effects > Noise Removal’.
Get noise profileClick on ‘Get Noise Profile’.
Doing this actually allows the Noise Removal effect to learn the noise selection you highlighted. This prepares the noise removal software to remove audio.
Step 3 – Reducing Noise
Listened to enough annoying noise yet? Time to remove it.
This time, highlight the whole audio file or select the parts of the audio you want the background audio reduced.
Using the parameters here can really change output soundUtilizing the parameters correctly in ‘Step 2’ of the Noise Removal effect can give you the difference in the effectiveness of sound output you get. It’s important to understand them
- Noise Reduction (db): This is how much reduction you do based on the noise profile you captured earlier. I usually go between 10 – 25 to preserve the audio’s naturalness.
- Sensitivity (dB): How sensitive in dB the reduction is done. The higher this is, the more noise it reduces but the more ‘artifacts’ you’ll get in your audio.
- Frequency Smoothing (Hz): This option here is helpful for smoothing out artifacts you hear in the audio. Using the frequency, smoothen out the noise reduction. For instance, if you’re removing lots of low-frequency rumbles, you want to smoothen at the lower frequencies.
- Attack/Decay Time (secs): Controls how fast the audio reduction kicks in and how soon it leaves the audio signal. I normally like a shorter attack time here.
Once you have the parameters set, ‘preview’ the audio file to hear how it’ll sound with the settings you made.
If it doesn’t sound like something you were aiming for, experiment changing the settings a little and then preview again. Once you get a denoising result that you want, click on OK to commit to the changes.
Prefer to watch a video? See how I do it in the video below:
I use Adobe Audition all the time for noise reduction. Most audio editors have audio reduction effects built in.
Most popular DAWs however, do not have it.
I was mixing audio for a documentary in Logic Studio on a Mac, when i realized I needed a denoising plugin to run inside Logic.
So I started testing noise reduction plugins that are available in the market. Having tried lots of them, I finally settled for iZotope RX. iZotope features a very nice denoising effect that works as a standalone and also as a VST/AU plugin.
Here’s a video of me denoising a noisy interview video using iZotope Denoiser as a plugin in Adobe Audition:
I get this question all the time.
The thing is it’s not that your video is noisy. It’s the audio that was recorded together with your video which is noisy.
This usually happens when you do a video recording on your camcorder or DSLR without a dedicated shotgun microphone like the Rode NTG2 or a suitable lavalier microphone.
There’s no way around it than to invest in a set of dedicated microphones and portable audio record to get good audio when recording videos.
DSLR takes good videos, but the in-built microphone is a nightmare for interviewsAnyhow, if you already got your recordings, don’t discard it yet. There is still hope of saving them… for now.
I’ll explain how I normally do the job of removing noise from audio.
Step 1 – Find A Way To Unlink Audio From Video
You need to find a way to unlink the noisy audio from your video. This is because you have to edit the audio, not actually the video itself.
I use Adobe Premiere Pro to do this. Adobe Premiere allows me to unlink audio, edit the audio in Adobe Audition and then have it saved automatically after I make changes in Adobe Audition.
I edit my audio with adobe audition through premiere proStep 2 – Do the Denoising within Adobe Audition
Once you click, ‘edit with Adobe Audition’, Audition will load with your audio file in it. Within Audition, I use can use it’s built-in noise reduction effect to remove the noise from the audio clip.
However, I prefer using iZotope RX Denoiser as it gives me better control over the noise that I want to reduce.
I’m using iZotope Denoiser as a VST in Adobe AuditionIf you don’t have a 3rd party VST plugin like iZotope RX Denoiser, just use the built-in denoiser in Audition.
Once you’re done with the edit, just save and close the program.
Step 3 – Exporting Your Video
Back in Premiere Pro, the audio will be updated with the edits you have made. At this point, you’ll have to export your video, so just re-export your video with the now denoised audio clip.
In my opinion, the best noise reduction software in terms of price and ease of use would be iZotope RX.
iZotope RX, since the early days, comes with a multitude of other effects which you’ll find very useful for audio restoring projects. No matter if you’re into broadcasting, audio restoration works or simply a recording engineer looking to clean up your vocalist’s audio files, I guarantee that iZotope will be able to handle all of that.
I’ll briefly talk about the additional software functions that come with iZotope RX.
Note that while the version used in the screenshots below may be an earlier version, the concepts of using it still remains the same.
The difference? Every new version usually has its algorithm optimized to be more efficient in CPU processing and to produce cleaner and higher sound quality.
iZotope RX Denoiser
RX DenoiserRX Denoiser works like most noise reduction effects. The advantage that RX Denoiser has over standard audio reduction effects is that it has different algorithms in which you can use to get better results for denoising. It also allows better control over the ‘artifacts’ which are normally left in your audio tracks after you process denoising effects.
In RX 4 you notice a fairly easier interface to use and also an addition of a ‘dialogue’ tab, which gives you more control over denoising audio for dialogues.
RX Spectral Analyser
RX4 Spectral AnalyserSpectral Analyser is another effect which can be really useful if you do audio work for broadcast TV.
With Spectral Analyser, you don’t edit on waveforms but on spectral frequencies. This allows you to zoom in into noise audio frequencies and remove sounds, for instance, a single chair squeak during an interview recording. Drops and cuts in audio can also be fixed. The effect accomplishes this by collecting audio sounds around the problem area.
Try it and you’ll notice it’s a little like ‘photo-shopping‘.
RX DeClipper
Free Noise Cancellation Vst Downloads
Does what its name implies. Removes clipping that happens in a recording.
This effect has saved me many times when I recorded an actor who suddenly screamed in her role, causing my the audio recordings to clip.
RX DeClicker, RX DeHum
Declicker is great when using it to restore things like old tapes and I found DeHum especially useful when trying to repair a concert sound recording which had lots of hum, due to the audio hardware setup.
Having done many recording outdoors at noisy locations and getting into trouble, here is a list of best practices to put in mind when recording outdoors or in situations when noise is inevitable.
- Always record up to a minute of the location. – When I was part of an audio crew, recording a film. We always recorded 1 minute worth of the room noise before we started rolling for real. This gives us a 1-minute noise profile which we can use for denoising audio during post-production.
- Use Shotgun Or Lavalier Microphones – Different microphones work in different scenarios. Shotgun microphones generally give a more natural sound compared to lavalier microphones, but depending on the situation, sometimes it’s wiser to use a lavalier to record audio.
- Invest in Good Isolated Headphones– One of the most important things when recording audio outdoors is to have well-isolated headphones which you can monitor audio from.
- Take several takes – Do as many takes as possible and keep every take whether good or bad. That way you’ll have unlimited tracks which you can cross edit, eventually constructing a clean audio clip.
Did I miss any best practices when recording outdoors and when dealing with noisy audio files? Let me know in the comment box below: