All three NLEs – Final Cut, Premiere and Resolve – provide audio tools to remove background noise. Most use machine learning to achieve this.
While these are advertised as “removing” noise, a more accurate term is “reducing” noise. Both background noise and human speech occupy the same frequency range. Removing too much background noise will damage the voice quality of the speaker.
So, when applying this effect, you are looking for a balance between removing as much noise as necessary without damaging the speaker’s voice.
NOTE: If you need an absolutely clean background, you should re-record the audio in a studio using ADR techniques. Most of the time, though, we like a bit of background because it creates the feeling of being on location.
Here’s our sample mono audio clip. It is a talking head recorded at a trade show with a lot of background noise, as you can see from the raised waveform at the beginning of the clip.
Here’s how to reduce the background noise and enhance the voice.
Enhanced speech is a new feature in Premiere that uses machine learning to improve the clarity and presence of dialogue recordings. This AI-powered tool helps reduce background noise and enhance vocal quality, making spoken audio more distinct and professional.
To start, select the timeline audio clip(s) you want to enhance.
Open the Essential Sound panel (choose Window > Essential Sound) (top red arrow) and turn on Enhance Speech (right red arrow). This feature is off by default.
Then, click the Enhance button (lower red arrow).
A progress bar appears in the Essential Sound panel, showing the estimated time for the AI system to analyze the clip. A clip only needs to be analyzed once.
NOTE: This analysis runs in the background so you can keep editing while it is running.
After the analysis is complete, the audio will be clearer, background noise reduced and speech more distinct.
Drag the Mix Amount slider until your audio sounds its best.
I saw about a 6dB drop in background noise when this effect is applied, without a corresponding drop in the speaker’s voice levels.
SUMMARY
This effect is simple to apply and, because the analysis runs in the background, it won’t slow you down while it’s performing its magic.
While there are other noise reduction tools in Premiere and more in Audition, nothing reduces noise more easily.
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3 Responses to How to Reduce Background Noise in Adobe Premiere Pro 2025
BUT…can this work to reduce background crowd-noise in a musical performance?
I’D PAY FOR THAT !!!!
Gregg:
Since this is included in Premiere, you can test it yourself without spending any money.
However, music is full-spectrum sound. Reducing background noise may damage the musical quality. But, give it a try and see how well it works.
Larry
My first shot at using Essential Sound was to help clean up a few sound bites captured in the very noisy pits of a nostalgia drag race. A challenging test. It was miraculous until it attempted to pick up a few words or syllables in nearby background chatter, assuming those fragments were part of my subjects speech. Very frustrating. So there are limits. But when background is fairly clean, it’s pretty amazing. A bigger issue is that if you make available adjustments, they would get often get lost or change. It seems to think it knows what you want better than you do. Frustrating. Hopefully they’ll fulfill the promise of this feature soon.