Extremely effective for steady-state noise (air conditioners, preamp hiss). Can cause “underwater” artifacts if reduction set too high (>30 dB).
No “musical noise” artifacts. Great for cleaning high-frequency hiss (tape, converters) without damaging transients. Requires careful band setup. noise removal plugin free
Exceptional for podcasts, vocals. Zero artifacts on voice. CPU heavy (~10–12% per instance). Requires SSE4.2 CPU. Zero artifacts on voice
Uses an adaptive noise floor estimation with adjustable thresholds. Unlike simple gates, it reduces noise across all frequencies proportionally. Great for cleaning high-frequency hiss (tape
Instead of broadband subtraction, it compresses/expands specific frequency ranges when they fall below a threshold. Effectively ducks hiss in silent passages.
No learn function; you must manually set threshold. GUI is basic but functional. 3.2 ReaFIR (Cockos) – Most Powerful | Aspect | Details | |--------|---------| | Developer | Cockos (part of REAPER) | | Type | FFT-based subtractive / dynamic EQ | | Formats | VST, AU (free standalone) | | OS | Windows, macOS, Linux | | Key feature | “Subtract” mode with noise profile capture |
Trained on thousands of voice and noise samples. Uses deep learning to isolate speech even under heavy background (e.g., traffic, café noise).