You’ve finally captured it. The perfect shot of a sunset or a high-stakes gaming clip where you actually landed the headshot. Then you play it back. All you hear is a leaf blower next door or your own heavy breathing because you were way too excited. It’s annoying. Honestly, knowing how to edit out sound in a video is probably the most underrated skill in content creation because bad audio kills good video every single time.
People will watch a grainy 720p video if the story is good, but they’ll click away in three seconds if there’s a piercing screech or distracting background hum. You don't need a degree in sound engineering. You just need to know which buttons to push and when to just scrap the audio entirely.
Why you need to kill the noise
Sometimes the "vibe" of a video is silence. Or maybe it's a lo-fi track you found on Epidemic Sound. Most people think they need to keep the original audio for "authenticity," but professional editors at places like Adobe or Blackmagic Design will tell you that most "natural" sound in movies is actually replaced in post-production. It's called Foley. If the pros do it, you should too.
If you're trying to learn how to edit out sound in a video, you're likely dealing with one of three things: total removal, surgical clipping, or AI-powered cleaning. Total removal is the easiest. You just detach the audio track and hit delete. Surgical clipping is harder. That’s when you want to keep the talking but lose the dog barking in the background.
The quick and dirty mobile fix
Most people are editing on their phones now. If you're using Instagram Reels or TikTok, you've probably seen the "Volume" tool. It's basic. You just slide the "Original Sound" bar to zero. But what if you want to keep the video but use it elsewhere?
CapCut is the heavy hitter here. Open your project, tap the video clip in the timeline, and look for "Extract Audio." This is a game-changer because it separates the sound into its own layer. Once it's a separate bar, you can just tap it and delete it. Or, if you're feeling fancy, you can use their "Reduce Noise" feature. It uses a basic algorithm to identify constant frequencies—like a fan or a hum—and tries to phase them out. It’s not perfect. Sometimes it makes your voice sound like you’re talking through a tin can.
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Desktop power moves with Premiere and DaVinci
If you're serious, you’re likely using Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve. In Premiere, you right-click the clip and hit "Unlink." This is the first thing every editor learns. By default, the video and audio move together like a married couple that's always holding hands. Unlinking them lets them live their own lives. You can delete the audio, move it, or replace it with a recording of a rainforest.
DaVinci Resolve is actually more powerful for this because of the Fairlight page. It’s a dedicated audio suite inside the video editor. If you have a specific sound—like a beep—you can use the "Spectral Repair" tool. It lets you see the sound. Literally. You see a heat map of frequencies, and you can "paint" out the sound of a phone ringing while leaving the person’s voice untouched. It feels like magic. It’s also free, which is wild considering how much Hollywood uses it.
Dealing with the "hiss" and "hum"
Let's talk about the stuff you can't just "delete." Background hiss is the worst. It’s usually caused by cheap pre-amps in cameras or a high gain setting. If you can't edit out the sound entirely because you need the dialogue, you need a "De-Noiser."
Adobe recently launched "Enhance Speech." It’s an AI tool where you upload a messy audio file, and it reconstructs the voice. It doesn't just filter the noise; it actually uses a neural network to "re-imagine" what the person said without the background garbage. It’s frighteningly good. I’ve seen it take a recording made next to a literal waterfall and make it sound like it was done in a soundproof booth.
But be careful. Over-processing makes people sound like robots. You lose the "air" in the room. Sometimes a little bit of background noise is good. It provides context. If you're at a coffee shop, we want to hear a little bit of the espresso machine. Just a little.
Mistakes everyone makes
- Forgetting the "Fade": When you cut out a loud sound, don't just let it drop to silence instantly. It’s jarring. Use a "Constant Power" or "Crossfade." Even a 0.1-second fade makes the transition feel natural to the human ear.
- Ignoring the "Room Tone": If you cut out a section of audio, you’re left with "digital silence." Digital silence sounds weird. It sounds like your headphones died. Smart editors record 30 seconds of "room tone"—just the sound of the empty room—and loop that under the entire video. It bridges the gaps where you edited out noises.
- Trusting cheap headphones: Don't edit audio using $20 earbuds. They won't show you the low-end rumble that will shake someone's car speakers later. Use monitor headphones or at least something with a flat frequency response.
How to edit out sound in a video using browser tools
Maybe you don't want to download 5GB of software. I get it. Tools like 123Apps or Kapwing allow you to do this in a Chrome tab. You upload the file, hit "Mute," and export. The downside? Privacy and quality. When you upload your video to a random site, you're giving them your data. Plus, they often compress the video so much it looks like a Lego movie.
For a one-off project, it's fine. For anything you're putting on YouTube to grow a brand, stick to local software. Even iMovie or Windows Photos (now called "Clipchamp") is better because it processes the file on your hardware, not a distant server that might be scraping your face for an AI model.
Specialized Fixes: Wind and Echo
Wind is the final boss of audio editing. If your mic didn't have a "dead cat" (those fuzzy covers), the wind will clip the audio. Clipping means the data is gone. You can't really "edit out" wind if it's over the voice. You can try a high-pass filter, which cuts out low frequencies (the "thumping" of the wind), but the voice will end up sounding thin.
Echo is another nightmare. If you recorded in a big empty room, you have "reverb." While you can use "De-Reverb" plugins from companies like iZotope, they often make the audio sound "underwater." Honestly? If the echo is that bad, your best bet for how to edit out sound in a video is to just do ADR. Automated Dialogue Replacement. You sit in a quiet closet with your phone, watch the video, and record yourself saying the same lines. Then you sync it up. It sounds like a lot of work because it is. But it’s how every movie you’ve ever loved was made.
Actionable steps to clean up your next project
Stop looking at the video and start listening. Truly listening. Close your eyes and play the clip. Do you hear a hum? A click? Your own breathing?
- Step 1: Isolate the problem. Use headphones. Identify if the sound is constant (fan) or intermittent (car horn).
- Step 2: Try the "Unlink" method. In your editor of choice, separate the audio from the video. If the sound is in a gap between talking, just cut that section of audio out and replace it with a "room tone" clip.
- Step 3: Apply a Noise Gate. This is a cool tool that basically says "don't let any sound through unless it's louder than X decibels." It automatically silences the background whenever you aren't speaking.
- Step 4: Normalize. Once the bad sounds are gone, make sure your remaining audio is hitting around -6dB to -3dB. Not too quiet, not too loud.
- Step 5: Add a "Bed." Put some very quiet background music or ambient noise (like "city street" or "office hum") under everything. This masks the spots where you edited things out and makes the whole video feel cohesive.
Audio is 50% of the viewing experience. If you take the ten minutes to properly edit out the junk, your production value triples instantly. Start with a simple "Mute" and work your way up to frequency painting. Your audience's ears will thank you.