How to Reduce Background Noise While Recording | Tools & Tips

With people foraying into content creation at a large scale, making videos and editing them has really become a thing. However, background noise is an annoyance for many people. It hinders your audio and causes headaches while post-production, affecting your content, podcast, or voiceover work.

In this post, we will decode the reasons, solutions, and tips to record audio without background noise for better audio quality. Now, let's delve into the practical ways to reduce background noise when recording.

Common Causes of Background Noise When Recording

While there are many factors that add up to the background noise, here are some of the common causes of background noises when recording. Additionally, you can work on them to improve the audio quality.

• Ambient Environment: Your physical surroundings, like street noise, fans, or appliances, will contribute to the background noise.
• Microphone Quality: A bad microphone will render the audio by not filtering out unwanted noise and results in a poor signal-to-noise ratio.
• Electronic Devices: All devices like computers, mobiles, and other electronics transmit signals that might introduce interference and hum into the recording.
• Poor Acoustics: Rooms with bad soundproofing and acoustics cause reverberation, echoes, and noise reflections.
• External Sources: If you are recording outside, factors like wind, trees, breeze, and traffic may introduce unwanted noise.

Share this post about reducing background noise when recording with others in need!

2 Tools of Reducing Background Noise While Recording

You can use a voice recorder with noise cancellation to minimize background noise while recording on your computer. Here are two recommendations: EaseUS RecExperts and Audacity. Here's a table reflecting the effectiveness of both methods.

Tool 1. Use Professional Voice Recorder to Reduce Background Noise

The best possible way to reduce background noise while recording is to use a professional recorder like EaseUS RecExperts. The tool contains real-time AI-powered noise reduction features which automatically remove the background noise and help you maintain a good sound-to-noise ratio to produce audio of high quality. You can record both the desktop and microphone sounds in great sync.

This tool is perfect for screen recording without background noise on Mac and Windows. This tool comes with an added advantage of a professional screen recorder and helps you easily extract audio for further editing. You can have a try now.

Step 1. Run EaseUS RecExperts, and click Record audio on the left panel. Next, choose the audio source you want to record, like System sound or microphone. 

Step 2. Click the down-arrow icon next to System Sound or Microphone, choose the Advanced options, and tick the Microphone boost and Microphone noise reduction options. Moreover, you can also adjust the volume.

Step 3. Once done, click REC to start your audio recording. 

Tool 2. Use Noise Cancelling Audio Recorder - Audacity

Audacity is an open-source audio recorder that comes with an inbuilt noise suppression tool, which cancels out the hums, sounds, buzz, and other unwanted background noise from your audio. It also supports cross-platform use on Windows, macOS, and Linux and has strong community support.

Powerful recording, editing, and noise reduction features make Audacity a professional tool suitable for removing background noise from audio recordings.

Here is the guide on Audacity how to filter background noise:

Step 1. Download and open Audacity on your system. To select the Audio Host, click Audio Setup and choose Host. Then, select Windows WASAPI from the drop-down.

Step 2. Record or import the audio file you want to reduce background noise. Click on the Selection Tool or press F1 to choose the part that needs to be noise-removed.

Step 3. Then, click on Effect on the top and select Noise Reduction.

Step 4. In the Noise Reduction windows, click on Get Noise Profile. Record samples while raising the Noise Reduction meter to know the right value.

Step 5. Once done, go to the toolbar > File > Export > Export Audio and choose the desired format.

Share this guide on how to reduce background noise while recording with others.

Pro Tips About Reducing Background Noise While Recording

While recording with no background noise is impossible due to many underlying factors around the surroundings, microphones, and the devices themselves. You can follow some simple tips to reduce background noise while recording.

1. Use a directional microphone

Directional microphones are a very popular choice for audio recording. These microphones are more sensitive in one direction; in other words, they are polar patterns rather than omnidirectional.

2. Reduce the subject-to-microphone distance and increase the microphone-to-noise distance.

This is the most effective way to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. Just like in live performances, how a singer holds the Microphone directly at/on their mouth. This criterion will overcome the other unwanted noise and capture the audio.

3. Employ a pop filter or windscreen

A pop filter or windscreen can help reduce certain noise sources, such as plosives and wind, helping to improve the clarity and quality of your recordings.

4. Remove background noise sources

Optimizing the recording space is very important. If possible, try to avoid or remove acoustic noise sources around you, like an air-conditioning unit, fans, traffic noise, wind noise, etc. Not easy at all, but all of these will reduce the audio quality. Moreover, it is far easier to remove them beforehand than in post-production.

5. Use a stand to secure the microphone

Before recording, you can find a stand to hold the microphone in place and adjust the proper angle and distance to minimize vibrations and handling noise during recording.

6. Use a high-pass (low-cut) filter at the microphone

To avoid pink-noise-like, which accounts for the major part of background noise, use a high-pass (low-cut) filter. A high-pass filter will cut the noise out since the pink noise's most energy is at a low frequency.

Conclusion

To reduce background noise when recording, you can use a professional screen recorder like EaseUS RecExperts to record HD recordings or eliminate background noise with Audacity. Additionally, some tips like maintaining a quiet environment, using high-quality directional microphones, etc., are also critical to getting high-definition audio recordings.

Reduce Background Noise While Recording FAQs

Here are some of the most frequent FAQs asked on reducing background noise while recording. If you have similar queries hope this will help you.

1. How do I stop my mic from picking up background noise?

The background noise while recording is inevitable, but here are a few things you can do to minimize your mic from picking background noise.

• Get close to the Microphone and speak
• Remove any electrical appliances like AC, fans, etc, which introduce noise
• Make sure you choose a room that's good enough
• Use pop filters to remove plosives
• Use a background noise reduction filter

2. Why does my mic pick up background noise better than my voice?

This happens in some situations while recording. If your Microphone is too far from your mouth or close to noisy sources. The other case is if you have multiple sound sources around you, they tend to introduce ambient noise.

3. How to Avoid Background Noise When Recording on Phone?

Here's what you can do to avoid background noise when recording on the phone.

• Choose a quiet place
• Use your headphones
• Place a sound-dampening case around your phone
• Adjust the sound sensitivity on your phone.