Background noise in an audio file

Factual Questions
1

I used my phone to record someone reciting a poem. Unfortunately there is a lot of background noise from other people talking. Is there a way to get rid of that?

2

Try a noise gate.

3

You can try Audacity’s noise removal feature, but not sure how well it would work with complicated background noise (as opposed to a steady airplane hum, for example): Download | Audacity ®

Tutorial: Noise Reduction with Audacity: Quick Sound Tutorial - YouTube

For a more precise noise reduction, you can put Audacity into a spectrum visualizer mode and then tinker with different portions using the equalizer or other tools to “erase” the background speakers. That’s quite a lot of work, though.

Edit: If you can upload the sound file somewhere, I can take a look. (Soundcloud? Google Drive?)

4

It might be possible to mix with a soft background music , so as to mask the other background noise.

5

Here’s the file
https://soundcloud.com/user-103683979/voice-002

The lady speaking Chinese is the part I want.

A noise gate would probably have been the perfect thing to use when I was recording, but not sure it will help now. I’ll give it a whirl.

6

Here’s an attempt:

I did a two-pass noise removal, making one noise profile first with the background noise in the beginning and then another profile of that shrieking baby. It’s not perfect, and you lose some fidelity in the poet’s voice, but you can keep tinkering with the same tools until you find something that works.

7

Also, for next time, maybe a unidirectional mic would help a bit.

8

Wow, thank you! That is so much better.

9

Great.