How to remove background noise in GarageBand

GarageBand is a great, free way to record vocals, podcasts and demos, but its noise-reduction tools are more limited than people expect. There's no spectral noise reduction built in, only a Noise Gate, which works differently from what most people assume. This guide walks through GarageBand's actual workflow on Mac, why it often isn't enough on its own, and the fastest way to finish the job.

The fast way: remove noise GarageBand can't touch

A noise gate only mutes audio that falls below a volume threshold: it silences the noise between words, but it can't remove noise happening underneath your voice, because your voice is keeping the gate open the whole time you're talking. If your recording has a hiss, fan noise or hum running under the speech itself, a gate simply can't touch it. That's where a real noise reducer comes in. Export your track from GarageBand, then use the online background noise remover:

1. In GarageBand, export your song as a WAV or MP3 file (Share > Export Song to Disk). The export covers the whole project, so if you only want one voice track cleaned, export a project that contains just that track.
2. Upload the exported file to CleanNoise. It works with WAV, MP3 and M4A/AAC, among other formats.
3. CleanNoise detects the background noise automatically and removes it across the whole recording, including under your voice, not just during the gaps.
4. Listen to the free 30-second cleaned preview (no sign-up). If you like it, download the full file as WAV, MP3, M4A or FLAC for $0.99 (files up to 30 minutes), with no settings to tune.
5. Import the cleaned file back into GarageBand to finish your mix.

For extra polish once the noise is gone, the audio enhancer can help vocals sit clearer and louder in the mix.

GarageBand's built-in method: Noise Gate + EQ

GarageBand still has real value here: a gate and a low-cut EQ are worth doing before you export, especially for room tone between phrases. These steps are for GarageBand on Mac:

1. Select the audio track you want to clean up in the GarageBand timeline.
2. Click Smart Controls and open the Plug-ins area for that track.
3. Tick the Noise Gate checkbox. The first time you do, GarageBand adds the Noise Gate plug-in to the first effect slot. Then drag the Noise Gate slider to set its sensitivity. Apple describes a gate as cutting off the sound when it falls below a minimum level, so raise the slider until the noise disappears in the pauses, but not so far that it clips off quiet words. Play the track back while you adjust.
4. Add a Channel EQ plug-in on the same track. Switch on Band 1, its high-pass (low-cut) filter, and drag the control point to somewhere around 80–100 Hz for most voices, to roll off low-frequency rumble from AC units, desk vibration or handling noise. This doesn't affect your voice, which sits well above that range.
5. Play the track back and listen for gaps that still sound noisy or words that get clipped by the gate, and adjust the slider as needed.

On GarageBand for iPhone and iPad it's a little different: the Noise Gate is in the Audio Recorder's Input Settings and works while you record, and the EQ in Plug-ins & EQ is a simpler three-band Visual EQ.

This combination is genuinely useful; it just handles a different problem than continuous noise reduction. A gate cleans up the spaces between your words; it was never designed to clean up noise during them.

Tips for better results

• Set the gate carefully. Too sensitive and it chops off soft words; not sensitive enough and it barely gates anything.
• Low-cut almost everything. Rumble below 80 Hz rarely carries useful voice content, so cutting it is nearly always safe.
• Record clean first. A quiet room, a mic closer to your mouth, and no fan or AC running will save you the most editing time of anything on this list.
• If you're cleaning up narration pulled from a video project, the extract audio from video tool can grab the audio track first.

Which method should you use?

Use GarageBand's Noise Gate and EQ as your first pass. They're already there, free, and good at cleaning up silence between phrases and rolling off low rumble. Reach for CleanNoise when there's noise running under the voice itself, which a gate structurally can't remove. Most real-world recordings need both. For longer recordings, see pricing for files up to 60 minutes, credit packs and the monthly Pro plan.