Buzz
Today, Mytour will show you how to use Audacity to eliminate unwanted sounds from your recordings. You may want to remove various types of noises, such as background hum, voices, or certain parts of a song. It's important to note that Audacity's voice separation tool is quite basic and won't fully remove singing.
Steps
Trim sections of the recording
Launch Audacity using the orange waveform icon located between the blue headphones.
Click on File at the top left of the Audacity window (Windows) or at the top left of the screen (Mac).
Click on Open… (Open) in the File dropdown menu. A new window will appear.
Select a track. Click on the recording you wish to edit.
Click on Open in the bottom right corner of the window. The recording will open in Audacity.
Select a section. Find the part you want to delete, then click and drag the mouse over it to highlight it.
Press the Delete key. The selected track will be immediately removed from Audacity.
- You can also click on Edit and then select Delete from the dropdown menu.
Remove Background Noise
Select the noise section in the recording. Click and drag the mouse over the area with noise, if possible.
- If the noise area is too wide, simply select the most noticeable part.
Click on the Effect tab at the top of the Audacity window (Windows) or at the top of the screen (Mac). A dropdown menu will appear.
Click on Noise Reduction… near the middle of the Effect dropdown menu.
Click on the Get Noise Profile button at the top of the window. Audacity will identify what to keep and what to remove as background noise.
Select the part you want to remove noise from. You can also click the recording and press Ctrl+A (Windows) or ⌘ Command+A (Mac) to select the entire recording, which is especially useful for working with a song.
Click the Effect tab and select Repeat Noise Reduction from the dropdown menu. This option is located at the top of the dropdown. The appropriate noise reduction process will be applied to the recording.
Repeat the process if needed. If there is still significant noise, repeat the noise reduction process. You may need to do this several times until satisfied.
- You can increase the amount of noise removed by clicking Noise Reduction... in the dropdown menu and adjusting the "Noise reduction" slider to the right.
Remove Vocals
Select the entire recording. Click on the audio track, then press Ctrl+A (Windows) or ⌘ Command+A (Mac).
Click on the Effect tab at the top of the window (Windows) or screen (Mac).
Scroll down to the bottom and select Vocal Remover… (Remove Vocals). A selection window will appear (you may need to click on the downward arrow at the end of the dropdown menu to locate this option).
Click on the vocal remover plugin. In the popup window on the right of the dropdown menu, click the link to open the vocal removal window.
Click OK. The vocals in the recording will be partially removed. Although it's not 100% effective, you will notice a significant change in the result.
- You can repeat this step multiple times to improve the effect, but the authenticity of the recording may be affected.
