[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":287},["ShallowReactive",2],{"guide-en-clean-up-a-field-recording":3,"guide-en-clean-up-a-field-recording-related":277},{"id":4,"title":5,"author":6,"body":7,"date":262,"description":263,"difficulty":264,"extension":265,"image":266,"lastModified":262,"meta":267,"navigation":268,"outcome":269,"path":270,"readingTime":271,"robots":266,"scenario":272,"seo":273,"stem":274,"tools":275,"__hash__":276},"guides\u002F8.guides\u002F7.clean-up-a-field-recording.md","How to Make a Noisy Field Recording Usable","FlowPick Team",{"type":8,"value":9,"toc":251},"minimark",[10,14,17,22,25,32,38,44,50,53,57,60,69,76,82,85,89,92,98,103,106,114,117,123,129,135,140,143,147,155,158,168,174,179,182,186,189,199,205,211,215,221,227,233,244,248],[11,12,13],"p",{},"A recording made in a real room sounds different from the one you imagined. There is a fan, a fridge, traffic, and the speaker was three metres from the microphone. Usually both problems appear together: too quiet and too noisy.",[11,15,16],{},"The instinct is to turn the volume up first, because that is the obvious problem. That is the wrong order, and the rest of this guide explains why.",[18,19,21],"h2",{"id":20},"what-noise-removal-can-and-cannot-do","What noise removal can and cannot do",[11,23,24],{},"The denoiser runs RNNoise, which processes voice in short frames and estimates what is noise versus speech. That design sets its limits:",[11,26,27,31],{},[28,29,30],"strong",{},"It handles steady noise well."," Fan hum, air conditioning, room tone, a distant motorway — anything with a stable spectrum.",[11,33,34,37],{},[28,35,36],{},"It handles other voices poorly."," If a second person talked in the background, they are speech, not noise. The model will keep them and may mangle them.",[11,39,40,43],{},[28,41,42],{},"It cannot recover masked words."," Noise that completely covers a syllable means that syllable is gone. No processing brings it back.",[11,45,46,49],{},[28,47,48],{},"It can damage music."," If your recording contains music, expect it to sound odd afterwards. This is a voice tool.",[11,51,52],{},"Knowing which of these you have decides whether this workflow is worth starting.",[18,54,56],{"id":55},"step-1-get-the-audio-out-of-whatever-it-is-in","Step 1: Get the audio out of whatever it is in",[11,58,59],{},"Field recordings usually arrive inside a video container: a phone video, a screen recording, a camera file.",[11,61,62,63,68],{},"Use the ",[64,65,67],"a",{"href":66},"\u002Ftools\u002Faudio-extractor","audio extractor"," to pull the audio track out. Working on a 40 MB audio file instead of a 2 GB video is faster at every later step, and it makes the intermediates easier to keep organised.",[11,70,71],{},[72,73],"img",{"alt":74,"src":75},"Extracted M4A audio result showing AAC codec, original quality, no re-encoding and 33.1 KB output","\u002Fimg\u002Fguides\u002Faudio-extractor-output.jpg",[11,77,78],{},[79,80,81],"em",{},"Generated four-second MP4 → 33.1 KB AAC\u002FM4A audio. Original audio mode copies the audio packets without re-encoding.",[11,83,84],{},"If the source is already an audio file, skip this step.",[18,86,88],{"id":87},"step-2-denoise-before-you-turn-anything-up","Step 2: Denoise before you turn anything up",[11,90,91],{},"This is the part that decides the outcome.",[11,93,94],{},[72,95],{"alt":96,"src":97},"Two paths: amplifying first raises the noise floor with the voice, while denoising first then amplifying produces a cleaner result","\u002Fimg\u002Fguides\u002Fdenoise-before-gain.svg",[11,99,100],{},[79,101,102],{},"Gain applied first is applied to the noise too, and the denoiser then has a harder job.",[11,104,105],{},"Turning the volume up first multiplies everything, noise included. The denoiser then sees a louder but equally noisy signal, and its estimate is no better — but your ears now notice the artefacts more.",[11,107,108,109,113],{},"Open the recording in the ",[64,110,112],{"href":111},"\u002Ftools\u002Faudio-noise-remover","noise remover"," and process the original level.",[11,115,116],{},"Two settings matter:",[11,118,119,122],{},[28,120,121],{},"Preview first."," The tool processes the first 30 seconds as a preview. Always listen to that before running the full recording, because the full run on a long file takes time and the result is not always better.",[11,124,125,128],{},[28,126,127],{},"Denoise amount."," The output mix is a percentage, and lower values blend more of the original back in. Full strength removes the most noise and also the most character — voices start to sound processed. For material you intend to publish, somewhere below full strength usually sounds better; for material you only intend to transcribe, push it higher.",[11,130,131],{},[72,132],{"alt":133,"src":134},"RNNoise interface showing 80 percent denoised mix, original and denoised playback, and WAV export","\u002Fimg\u002Fguides\u002Fnoise-remover-compare.jpg",[11,136,137],{},[79,138,139],{},"Interface demonstration with generated speech at an 80% mix. This is not a noisy field recording or evidence of improved speech quality.",[11,141,142],{},"The tool's limit is 30 minutes per file. Longer recordings need to be split, which is also a reasonable excuse to cut the parts you will not use.",[18,144,146],{"id":145},"step-3-raise-the-level-gently","Step 3: Raise the level, gently",[11,148,149,150,154],{},"Now the recording is clean but still quiet. Open it in the ",[64,151,153],{"href":152},"\u002Ftools\u002Faudio-volume-booster","volume booster",".",[11,156,157],{},"Raise until it is comfortable, not until it is loud. Two reasons:",[159,160,161,165],"ul",{},[162,163,164],"li",{},"Boosting also raises whatever noise survived, and after denoising that residue is often hiss the model could not separate from breath.",[162,166,167],{},"If the recording clips — peaks hitting the ceiling — the damage is permanent. Leave headroom.",[11,169,170],{},[72,171],{"alt":172,"src":173},"Volume booster with plus three dB gain, peak protection and original versus processed playback","\u002Fimg\u002Fguides\u002Fvolume-booster-gain.jpg",[11,175,176],{},[79,177,178],{},"Generated speech with +3 dB gain and peak protection enabled. The displayed 61% peak is the source analysis; the interface does not display a measured output peak.",[11,180,181],{},"Listen for the sibilance: \"s\" and \"sh\" sounds are the first thing to distort when gain goes too high.",[18,183,185],{"id":184},"step-4-decide-what-the-file-is-for","Step 4: Decide what the file is for",[11,187,188],{},"The same recording needs different treatment depending on the destination, and it is worth being explicit about which one you want before exporting.",[11,190,191,194,195,154],{},[28,192,193],{},"For transcription."," Denoise hard, keep the level moderate. Recognition is more sensitive to the noise floor than to absolute loudness. Send the result to ",[64,196,198],{"href":197},"\u002Ftools\u002Faudio-to-text","Audio to Text",[11,200,201,204],{},[28,202,203],{},"For sharing."," Denoise gently and normalise the level. Over-processed speech sounds worse to a listener than mild background noise does.",[11,206,207,210],{},[28,208,209],{},"For editing."," Export a WAV at the processed level and let the editor do the final level matching. Do not apply the last 3 dB here.",[18,212,214],{"id":213},"where-this-goes-wrong","Where this goes wrong",[11,216,217,220],{},[28,218,219],{},"The result sounds robotic."," Too much denoise. Go back to the original and reprocess at a lower amount; the processing is not incremental, so re-running from the source is required.",[11,222,223,226],{},[28,224,225],{},"Noise is still there after processing."," It was probably not steady noise, or it was too loud relative to the voice. Check whether it is a fan (should work) or a conversation (will not work).",[11,228,229,232],{},[28,230,231],{},"The voice sounds distant and thin."," The microphone was far away. Denoising cannot add proximity; it can only remove what is not voice, and a distant voice has little of what makes speech sound present.",[11,234,235,238,239,243],{},[28,236,237],{},"The file got bigger."," Denoised output is WAV regardless of the input format. Convert to MP3 or M4A with ",[64,240,242],{"href":241},"\u002Ftools\u002Faudio-converter","Audio Converter"," if size matters.",[18,245,247],{"id":246},"what-you-end-up-with","What you end up with",[11,249,250],{},"A recording that is usable for its purpose, and an honest sense of what that purpose can be. A phone recording from across a room will not become a studio interview, but it can become a perfectly searchable transcript, which is often the actual goal.",{"title":252,"searchDepth":253,"depth":253,"links":254},"",2,[255,256,257,258,259,260,261],{"id":20,"depth":253,"text":21},{"id":55,"depth":253,"text":56},{"id":87,"depth":253,"text":88},{"id":145,"depth":253,"text":146},{"id":184,"depth":253,"text":185},{"id":213,"depth":253,"text":214},{"id":246,"depth":253,"text":247},"2026-10-29","Recorded on a phone in a room with a fan? Noise removal only helps with certain kinds of noise, and the order of denoise and gain matters more than either setting. A practical sequence.","basic","md",null,{},true,"A voice recording that is loud enough and clean enough to transcribe or publish.","\u002Fguides\u002Fclean-up-a-field-recording",6,"edit",{"title":5,"description":263},"8.guides\u002F7.clean-up-a-field-recording",[66,111,152],"1PsuwkWjHZ0y1-R9DoYV-z5L0x6RUJxRSyf0EDN6TT8",[278,285],{"path":279,"title":280,"description":281,"tools":282},"\u002Fguides\u002Fseparate-vocals-from-a-track","How to Split a Track into Vocals and Instrumental","The separator has a ten-minute ceiling, so trimming comes first. What to check in the 30-second preview, why the output is two WAV files, and what this kind of separation cannot do.",[283,284],"\u002Ftools\u002Faudio-trimmer","\u002Ftools\u002Fvocal-separator",{"path":270,"title":5,"description":263,"tools":286},[66,111,152],1793546744396]