How to Remove Background Noise in Adobe Audition
Capture a noise print from at least half a second of the unwanted sound, then run Noise Reduction in the Waveform Editor. A print of one noise will not clean a different noise.
Adobe Audition can reduce a fan, tape hiss, microphone noise, or power-line hum when that sound stays constant. You teach it the noise first. If the selection includes the voice, Audition will treat the voice as something to remove.
Key Takeaways
- Noise Reduction in Audition is a Waveform Editor effect. Capture the print before you run it.
- The noise-only selection has to be at least half a second. A shorter selection disables Capture Noise Print.
- Adobe says a useful reduction is often about 5 to 20 dB. More than that is not automatically better.
- A print made from one noise will not clean a different noise, and a print will not transfer to a different sample type.
What this effect is for
Adobe's effects guide says the Noise Reduction effect reduces background and broadband noise, including tape hiss, microphone background noise, power-line hum, or any other noise that stays constant through the waveform. It also says the right amount depends on the noise and on how much quality you can lose in the voice you want to keep. In general, Adobe says you can improve the signal-to-noise ratio by 5 to 20 dB and still keep high quality. (Noise reduction and restoration effects, retrieved 2026-10-16.)
This is the wrong effect for a bark, a door, or a crowd. Those sounds change. Audacity's manual draws the same line for its own noise reduction, and the limit applies here too. A bark that lands between words can be cut. A bark on top of a word usually cannot. See removing dog barking.
Photo: Galak76, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Capture the noise, then reduce it
Adobe's apply steps are:
- In the Waveform Editor, select a range that contains only noise and is at least half a second long.
- Choose Effects > Noise Reduction/Restoration > Capture Noise Print.
- Select the part of the file you want to clean.
- Choose Effects > Noise Reduction/Restoration > Noise Reduction.
- Set the options and listen before you apply them.
If Capture Noise Print is greyed out, Adobe says the selection is too short. Select a longer range, or lower the FFT size. You can copy and paste the short noise to make a longer selection, then delete that pasted noise afterward.
When you record in a noisy room, leave a few seconds of the room with nobody talking. That stretch is the print you will want later.
Adobe also says to remove DC offset first if the file has one. With a DC offset, Noise Reduction can add clicks in quiet passages. The command Adobe names is Favorites > Repair DC Offset.
Keep the print with the file it came from
You can save the current noise print as an .fft file and load it later. Adobe says you can apply that print only to identical sample types. A 22 kHz mono print cannot clean 44 kHz stereo audio. A print of one kind of noise also will not do well on another kind. If the noise changes, capture a new print.
The real-time restoration effects in the Multitrack Editor are a different set of tools. Adobe points people with unusually noisy audio to the offline Waveform effects, including Noise Reduction and Hiss Reduction, rather than expecting the real-time effects to finish the job.
When Audition is the wrong stop
Use Adobe Podcast Enhance Speech when you want an upload and a slider, and you do not have a clean stretch of noise to select. Use CapCut when the video is already in that editor. Use EraseNoise on the video noise remover when you want to hear the first 30 seconds of a saved video before you commit to the full file.
If the room rings after the words, this effect will not pull the voice closer. That file belongs on echo removal. The wider choice among editors is in best audio cleaning software, and the steady-noise overview is in how to remove background noise from video.