Free AI-Assisted Noise Reduction

US Tape It releases Denoiser 18/10/23

Tape It has released the Tape It Denoiser which they describe as a fully automatic, studio quality noise reduction software for audio. They say that, unlike existing AI algorithms, it works on any kind of audio, including music - not just speech and it's free for anyone to use at https://tape.it/denoiser

A spokesperson told us, "Just upload a recording, let our AI denoise the audio for you, optionally adjust the strength and download the result."

The company are also publishing the academic research behind it at the Audio Engineering Society conference in New York next week: https://tape.it/research/denoiser/

Tape It says rthat this is the result of over two years of research on how to combine traditional signal processing with modern AI algorithms, so we can get the benefit of both worlds: the studio quality results from the former and the automation and ease of use of the latter. A spokesperson told us, "Our company has a longer vision behind it, which is all about making audio recording as simple as photography is today, and the denoiser is our first milestone in this journey. We have a lot of experience in the field of audio and AI, CEO Thomas Walther i.e. sold his last AI music company, Sonalytic, to Spotify in 2017."

Here's the official press release...

Background noise is one of the biggest headaches in audio recording: anyone who has ever used a microphone knows how difficult it is to deal with environmental noise and electrical interference. Before, you had to record in an expensive studio or use complex software that is time-consuming and difficult to use. This is about to change.

Today, music software developer Tape It released their free AI-powered Denoiser that automatically removes background noise such as hums and hisses. It produces studio-quality results on full songs, single instrument tracks, and field recordings -- not just on spoken word. Tape It launched its Denoiser as a free web app and will later implement it into the company's flagship product, the Tape It iOS app, which helps musicians organize and record song ideas. This tool is part of a bigger strategy to develop tools that simplify recording for musicians.

"Everyone is excited about AI being creative," says Thomas Walther, CEO of Tape It. "We are excited about AI solving boring problems. We take care of background noise, so you can entirely focus on the creative parts and write more songs!"

Together with the launch, the company released an academic study with a comprehensive scientific listening test which has shown that the software's quality competes with - and sometimes even outperforms - industry-leading denoisers that usually require hours of adjustment and tweaking.
"Other denoisers either sound bad on music, or require expensive software that takes time and a lot of expert knowledge to use. Tape It just works."

The denoiser's main areas of focus are:

Immediate results that would otherwise require expertise and complex software

Accessibility by making it as simple as possible with just one slider to set the strength of

reduction

Protecting the original sound by keeping instruments' and vocals' unique character with

no harsh processing