Adobe has announced a new AI-powered technology to clean up audio with noisy backgrounds. Project Sound Lift was unveiled as part of the Adobe “Sneaks” showcase at the Adobe MAX Japan event.
Project Sound Lift
The Adobe Project Sound Lift uses AI to fix your audio when you have speech recorded in a noisy environment. However, the technology doesn’t just improve your audio quality. It actually separates out the recording into distinct tracks of voices, non-speech sounds and other background noise. This means that you can independently adjust the levels of voice and background audio to achieve the perfect mix. The tool is being developed by speech AI researchers at Adobe Research.
Removing background music
Adobe shared several examples of Project Sound Lift in action as part of the MAX Japan presentation. The first clip featured Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen’s keynote speech at Adobe MAX in the US earlier this year. The audio also had music and applause as Narayen began to talk. The demonstration video showed the selection of “background” sounds with a single click. Afterward, the video was replayed with only the voices of the introducer and Narayen audible. There was also a separate audio file with the background music and applause.
Remixing your audio
Once Project Sound Lift has isolated your voice, background or music tracks into separate audio files, the magic truly begins. Adobe showcased a video of Adobe evangelist Russell Brown speaking in a noisy exhibition hall. Brown was speaking to the camera, but there were distracting voices of other people in the background. Project Sound Lift created individual clean audio files of Brown’s voice and the background voices. Using the audio mixer in Premiere Pro, the files were adjusted to lower the background sounds. This resulted in a much clearer audio for Brown’s voice while keeping the environmental sounds in the background.
What we think
Capturing high-quality audio with your video is often a challenge, especially for solo shooters or run-and-gun filmmakers. Wind, less-than-ideal microphone placement or crowd and environmental sounds can negatively affect your audio. However, Project Sound Lift promises the ability to fix all of this. In addition, by separating the audio element into separate recordings, the new Adobe AI technology means you can remix your video’s soundtrack how you want. We can’t wait for Adobe to roll out Project Sound Lift.
