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, why it often isn't enough on its own, and the fastest free 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 free browser-based background noise remover:

1. In GarageBand, export your track as a WAV or AIFF file (Share > Export Song to Disk).
2. Drop the exported file into CleanNoise. It works with WAV, AIFF, MP3 and M4A.
3. CleanNoise profiles the steady noise floor across the whole recording, including under your voice, and reduces it, not just during the gaps.
4. Preview the before/after, then download the cleaned file in one click, with no settings.
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:

1. Select the track you want to clean up in the GarageBand timeline.
2. Click Smart Controls, then open the plug-ins area for that track (the small slots near the top of the Smart Controls panel).
3. Add the Noise Gate plug-in. Set the threshold just above the level of your room's noise floor, high enough that the gate closes during silence but low enough that it doesn't clip off quiet words. Watch the meter while you talk normally to find the right spot.
4. Add a Channel EQ plug-in on the same track. Use its low-cut (high-pass) filter, typically 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 threshold as needed.

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 threshold carefully. Too high and it chops off soft words; too low 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 multi-track podcasts or longer projects, see pricing for batch processing.