How to remove crosstalk and mic bleed from audio for free

The best way to remove crosstalk or mic bleed from multiple microphone recordings is to use a great mixer. Well, not everyone has access to a great mixer, so here’s an easy, fast, and free way to do it using Auphonic.

What is Crosstalk?

Crosstalk is unwanted leakage or bleed of a signal from one or more channels to other channels within a device.

What is Mic Bleed?

Mic bleed or spill is when a close mic picks up sound from another sound source. Two people might be speaking into two different microphones that are placed too close together.

Before you begin, you’ll need to make sure your independent mic recordings are in an uncompressed WAV or similar lossless format.

Step 1

Upload each file to Auphonic. If you don’t have an Auphonic account, you can create a free trial which includes 2 hours of standard processing.

Step 2

Once you are in Auphonic, click “Productions” and then “New Multitrack Production”.

Step 3

Click “Select File” and then upload your first track.

Step 4

Check “Filtering” and “Noise and Hum Reduction (Auto)”.

Step 5

Choose the “Foreground/Background” menu and select “Foreground Track”.

Step 6

Click “Add Audio Track” and choose the next track.

Step 7

Repeat the steps 3 to 6 for additional tracks and make sure each mone has the “Foreground Track” checked.

Step 8

Go to the “Output Files” section and select “WAV” and mark it as “Mono”.

Step 9

Go to the “Master Audio Algorithms” section and select all available options:

• Adaptive Leveler
• Adaptive Noise Gate
• Crossgate
• Loudness Target (set to -16 LUFS)

Step 10

Go to the “Start Production” section and follow the steps provided.

That’s it! You should have a pretty clean mono WAV file for further editing. Good luck!