How to reduce background noise on mic

Who will not agree with my following statement? Whether you are video conferencing with colleagues, chatting with friends, or recording content for public consumption, audio quality is always important. Isn’t it? Getting along with the topic at hand we will see how to reduce background noise on mic. Thereby, getting crisp, clear audio and also minimizing background noise in Windows PC.

How to record a clear audio

Before you get into the software features, consider some basic best practices for clearer audio recordings. Here are a few quick tips:

• Wear headphones

If your microphone picks up noise from the speakers, put on headphones to eliminate the echo.

• Use a dedicated microphone or headset

Many laptops have pretty inferior built-in microphones. Try plugging a special microphone or headset into your PC.

Types of Noise

Before trying to minimize unwanted noise, let us first try to understand it better. Several types of background noise can affect sound quality and interrupt your recording:

• Impulse Noise

Sharp noises like pops and clicks are called impulse noise. These noises are usually short and of high frequency.

• Broadband Noise

Continuous noises with a wide range of frequencies are called broadband noises. Hum and hiss belong to this category.

• Narrowband Noise

Continuous noises with a narrow range of frequencies are referred to as narrowband noise. These noises remain constant and are usually caused by improper grounding or cables connected to the microphone.

• Irregular Noise

Unwanted sounds such as traffic, rain, thunder, speech, etc. Since these noises vary in frequency, length, and volume, it is usually difficult to remove them.

Noise Reduction in Windows

There are pretty much many options to get you out of background microphone problems. So, exactly which options are available depends on the sound hardware in your PC and your manufacturer’s audio drivers. To get to them :

• Go to Start Menu.
• Open the Control Panel.
• Go to Hardware and Sound
• Thereafter, attend Sound.
• In the Sound window, click the Recording tab, select your microphone device, and click Properties.
• Then again, click on the Levels tab.
• If you are dealing with background noise, try lowering the Microphone Gain option – perhaps to +10.0 dB instead of +20.dB.
• After reducing the microphone gain option, try setting the microphone volume all the way to 100.
• If you decrease the gain setting and the microphone is quieter, you can increase the volume here so people can hear you better.
• After you have changed some settings, click “Apply” and test your microphone again to see if it helped.
• Finally, click on the “Enhancements” tab. This tab may or may not be available because it completely depends on your PC audio hardware and drivers.
• After completing all the steps, finally, click on “OK” and save the changes.
• Now, exit the panel.

Check out this article on Windows 10 Privacy Tools !!!

How to reduce background noise on mic — Use noise cancelling Tools

There are various tools available in the market which avoid unwanted noise. Especially, due to the pandemic, there have been various updates and upgrades made in software and also new tools have come up to facilitate online meetings and or online education with the noise-canceling effect. We look at some of them below :

Google Meet

Google added noise cancelation to Google Meet on April 22, 2020. Also, Google Meet will automatically filter out background noise.

Zoom

Zoom has built-in background noise cancelation that is enabled by default. To check these options :

• Open Zoom’s settings panel from the menu.
• Select “Audio” in the sidebar, and click the “Advanced” button.
• You will then see the “Suppress Persistent Background Noise,” “Suppress Intermittent Background Noise,” and “Echo Cancelation” features.
• These audio processing features are all set to “Auto” by default, but you can disable them or set them to be more or less aggressive.

NVIDIA RTX Voice

If you have the NVIDIA RTX Voice application installed, you can enable the Remove Background Noise feature, which uses machine learning. NVIDIA advocates that this software only works on systems with NVIDIA RTX GPUs. However, as per reports coming from Ars Technica, it can also work on PCs with older NVIDIA graphics hardware.

How to reduce background noise on mic — Opt for Noise Cancelling Microphone

If nothing else works, you may need a better microphone. For example, you may have two microphones built in – a primary microphone to pick up your voice and a secondary microphone to pick up ambient noise. You can then filter out the ambient noise. These are the specialized microphones.

Even if you do not choose a dedicated mic, a higher quality mic can greatly improve audio quality over a built-in laptop mic or an old headset you had lying around.

WRAPPING UP !!

We know now what we all need to do get rid of the background noise when using our microphones. The best way according to me is buying a microphone which comes embedded with the noise-cancelling technology. So, hopefully, this guide goes a long way in enlightening you. What option you choose? Please let us know in the comments section. Until next time, see ya !! 🙂 Wait for the next article !!