One of the new features in the 10.6.2 release of Final Cut Pro is Voice Isolation. Although it is part of Audio Enhancements, you need to turn it on manually.
Normally, I’m not a fan of “automatic,” um, anything. But yesterday, Scott Favorite wrote: “I had a shoot last week inside a loud greenhouse with lots of fans and generator noise. I loved using [Voice Isolation] so much I added it to my outdoor interviews as well.”
Intrigued, I started playing with it. Using it could not be simpler and the results are pretty amazing. What it does is remove noise and hum from audio to make the voice easier to hear and understand. Here’s how it works.
Select an audio clip (or a video clip with audio attached) in the timeline. This one has a lot of background noise and AC hum.
Open the Audio Inspector and enable (check) Voice Isolation.
The default Amount setting of 50 removed the hum and background noise. Drag the slider left to let more background noise in, drag right to remove more of it.
I was not expecting to be impressed with Voice Isolation, but if you are shooting in noisy environments, enabling this one checkbox can create a major improvement in your audio. This is a very helpful audio tool!
EXTRA CREDIT
Most noise removal tends to remove bass. Add Effects > Fat EQ and boost lower frequencies (around 200 – 400 Hz) 3-5 dB to add a bit more richness to the voice.
8 Responses to New! Voice Isolation in Apple Final Cut Pro
If you are looking for this feature in the new FCP update and don’t see it, check to see you’re running Monterey 12.3.1. It doesn’t show up if you’re running some earlier versions of Monterey.
Scott:
Thanks. I forgot to mention this.
Larry
Great Caesar’s Ghost! This works absolutely amazing, especially since it only has one slider to work with. I fly paramotors and have a paramotor YouTube channel and ever since I started it, I’ve been trying to find ways to minimize the insanely loud paramotor noise. No noise reduction/EQ setting did the trick enough but this new feature handles the audio great! I can’t wait to publish my next video with better audio!
I am so grateful that you pointed this out. This is a real game changer. I have tried it on a variety of clips with different kinds of background noise during i/vs including a tractor and it is amazing. It was the main reason I decided to finally update my OS to Monterey and it is worth it just for this.
I was looking at an older project edited in 10.6.4 and wanted to try Voice Isolation on one clip, but VI didn’t appear under Audio Enhancements in the Audio Inspector. I had used the iZotope Voice De-noise plugin and the Apple Compressor plugin on the clip and thought that might have caused the problem. But after I removed the effects, still no Voice Isolation choice.
So I dragged a clip from the browser to the end of the timeline, selected it, and Voice Isolation was shown in the Inspector. I added Compressor and Voice De-noise, and Voice Isolation remained. So, I tried selecting an earlier clip in the timeline, but it didn’t show VI. The only solution I found was to Detach Audio in the clip with the plugins. Then, the VI choice finally appeared in the Inspector.
Any ideas how to force Voice Isolation on? I don’t like detaching audio. Plus, it’s a lot of extra work.
Hi Larry, I’ve noticed that the noise removal slider sometimes doesn’t work beyond the default setting at 50%. I’m running Monterey 12.2.1 and wondering if I should update it. Only worry I have is will that affect any of my existing projects that I might want to go back into to edit? Thanks for any advice.
Julie:
Just on general principles I don’t advise upgrading in the middle of a project. There’s too much risk of something breaking. This advice is true for both Premiere and Final Cut.
That being said, I suggest contacting Apple support to see if they have any guidance on getting Voice Isolation to work.
Larry
It’s not so much about being mid way through which I agree wouldn’t be a good time to update but more about all the existing projects which I might want to revisit at some point and make small edits. I will contact Apple and see what they say. Thanks Larry.