Best Audio Cleaning Software for a Noisy Voice Recording
Pick a noise tool by the job: a live call, a saved file, or a video you are already editing. The useful choice is the one that leaves the voice intact.
There is no single best audio cleaner. A live Discord call, a saved interview, and a video already open in CapCut are three different jobs. Pick the tool that sees the audio you actually have, then keep the result only if the words are easier to follow.
Key Takeaways
- Krisp inside Discord and NVIDIA Broadcast clean a live microphone. They do not open a file you already exported.
- Audacity and Adobe Audition can learn a stretch of steady noise and reduce that sound in the rest of the recording.
- Adobe Podcast Enhance Speech and a browser cleanup are the short path when you do not want to capture a noise sample.
- If the voice turns thin, metallic, or watery, the quieter file is the worse file.
Match the tool to the noise
| What you have | Use | What it will not do |
|---|---|---|
| A live Discord call | Krisp in Discord | Clean the other person's mic, or a recording you already saved |
| A Windows PC with an RTX GPU | NVIDIA Broadcast | Run on a GeForce GTX card |
| Steady hiss, hum, or a fan in a saved file | Audacity or Adobe Audition | Remove a bark, a click, or a crowd |
| A voice file and no time to sample the noise | Enhance Speech, CapCut, or EraseNoise | Guarantee every overlapping sound disappears |
| A video you are already cutting in CapCut | CapCut's Reduce noise | Use the same menu name on every CapCut version |
Photo: dejankrsmanovic, CC BY 2.0.
Live calls
Discord Krisp. Discord says Krisp runs on your device and is meant for non-speech noise such as dogs, vacuums, and doors. It filters only your side of the call. It turns itself off when the CPU is very busy, and Discord says a quiet room with a good microphone can sound worse with it on. The steps are in how to remove background noise in Discord. (Krisp FAQ, updated March 25, 2025.)
NVIDIA Broadcast. NVIDIA says Broadcast creates a virtual microphone, and you select that device inside Zoom, Teams, Meet, Discord, OBS, and similar apps. Noise removal needs an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060, Quadro RTX 3000, TITAN RTX, or a higher RTX GPU. It does not run on GeForce GTX cards. NVIDIA also says to turn off a similar noise feature on the physical microphone so you do not run two cleanups at once. (NVIDIA Broadcast App FAQs, retrieved 2026-10-16.)
Zoom, Teams, and Meet have their own live switches. Those are covered in cleaning a meeting recording. None of them edits a file that is already on disk.
Saved files, when you can point at the noise
Audacity is the free editor for constant noise: hum, buzz, hiss, fan noise. The manual says it is not suitable for clicks or for irregular noise such as traffic or an audience. You select noise only, get a noise profile, then reduce the rest. The default reduction is 6 dB. If you hear the voice in the residue, use less. (Audacity Manual: Noise Reduction, retrieved 2026-10-16.) The click path is in how to remove background noise from video.
Adobe Audition does the same kind of job with a noise print. In the Waveform Editor, select at least half a second of noise only, choose Effects > Noise Reduction/Restoration > Capture Noise Print, then run Noise Reduction. Adobe says the effect can raise the signal-to-noise ratio by about 5 to 20 dB while keeping high quality, and that a print from one noise will not work well on a different noise. The steps are in removing noise in Adobe Audition. (Audition noise reduction, retrieved 2026-10-16.)
Saved files, when you want a shorter path
Adobe Podcast Enhance Speech uploads audio or video in the browser and returns the same format. Current help caps an upload at 1 GB. Adobe's guide says to leave the default enhancement unless the voice sounds robotic. See Enhance Speech.
CapCut is the right place when the video is already in that editor. On desktop, select the clip and open the Audio controls for Reduce noise. On the web, apply noise reduction from the clip's audio options. CapCut's own page says this is not a promise that every unwanted sound will go away. See how to remove background noise in CapCut.
EraseNoise is the path when you have an MP4, MOV, M4V, or WebM, or an audio file, and you do not want to install an editor. The video noise remover plays the first 30 seconds against the original. Process the full file only if that preview is easier to follow. A cleaned video comes back as MP4. A cleaned audio file comes back as WAV.
What to reject
Audacity says some distortion is normal, and that loud or changing noise can distort the voice enough that you should undo the effect. CapCut's page says the same thing in plain language: a thin, metallic, or watery voice can be less useful than the original, even when the pauses are quieter.
A bark on top of a word is the irregular case. Do not expect the steady-noise tools to lift it out. That limit is spelled out in removing dog barking from audio.