Soundtrap Adds AI-Powered Vocal Cleanup
My good friends at Soundtrap recently announced a very cool feature that harnesses the power of AI to remove background noise from any vocal track. The feature is called Vocal Cleanup and I am really impressed with the results. One of the disadvantages of students using only Chromebooks to make recordings is that the microphone isn’t the highest quality. It is very common to hear not only the usual background noise - be it a noisy classroom, talking, room noise, etc. - but also the 60 cycle hum of the CPU and sometimes a high pitched frequency known as a coil whine. Even if you and your students do have access to USB microphones and/or audio interfaces with good condenser microphones, you still will inevitably have background noise. Whether it’s a podcast or a vocal melody, no one wants to hear deal with background noise. The new Vocal Cleanup feature from Soundtrap is PERFECT for this situation.
In the recent announcement about Vocal Cleanup, Soundtrap posted a few before and after tracks for you to hear the effect in action. While subtle (best to listen with headphones on) it is definitely powerful. The engineering team at Soundtrap built a generative AI model that intelligently detects and removes background noise from the original vocal recording, without effecting the vocal content - very cool. There are a number of similar AI tools out on the market and I’m thrilled that Soundtrap has created one for their users too.
So how do you find it and use it? Simple. The first thing you’ll need to do is create a vocal track and record your vocals. You don’t need to worry about the Vocal Cleanup feature until after you’ve finished recording.
Once you are happy with your vocal track, hover over the very start of the track so that the Edit menu appears.
Next, click on the Edit menu and you’ll find the Vocal Cleanup option about halfway down the dropdown menu.
When you click on Vocal Cleanup a new window will appear. You can toggle the switch back and forth to hear your vocal track with and without the Vocal Cleanup effect.
If you are happy with the results, just click the Apply button and you’re all set! Super easy and super powerful. If you and/or your students use Soundtrap to record vocals for podcasts or music projects, you should definitely start using this feature. It is available now for all users.
Well done Soundtrap!