ElevenLabs Voice Isolator and Crele both took background chatter out of the recording below. They part ways when a second person talks on the same microphone: ElevenLabs Voice Isolator is given the recording and nothing else, and kept both people. Crele Focus 1.1 kept only the person marked, and Crele Remaster 1 then cleaned up their voice.
What does ElevenLabs Voice Isolator do?
ElevenLabs Voice Isolator removes background noise from a recording and hands back the speech. ElevenLabs says it turns noisy audio “into crisp clear speech”, takes audio and video files, and strips out “background music, overlapping conversations, and ambient interference.”
Its API takes an audio file and no sample of a voice, so the tool decides on its own which speech to keep.
Does ElevenLabs Voice Isolator remove background chatter?
Yes. On a recording of one person with friends talking a few meters away, ElevenLabs Voice Isolator took the chatter out, and so did Crele Remaster 1. Chatter across a room reaches the microphone quieter and duller than the person in front of it, so a tool can treat it as background. What is left to compare is the voice itself.
One person talking to a phone, with friends talking a few meters away, through ElevenLabs Voice Isolator and through Crele Remaster 1.
Original
ElevenLabs Voice Isolator
Crele Remaster 1
Crele Remaster 1 is speech enhancement: it regenerates the voice rather than filtering it, and returns 44.1 kHz audio. For noise with no second voice, hear ElevenLabs Voice Isolator and Crele Remaster 1 on two noisy recordings.
Can a voice isolator keep only one person’s voice?
Not when the other person is on the same microphone. ElevenLabs Voice Isolator kept both people in the recording below, while Crele Focus 1.1, told who to keep from a few seconds of them talking alone, kept only them. A second person as close and as loud as you is a voice in front, not background, and nothing you give a voice isolator says which of you to keep.
Two people on one microphone, through ElevenLabs Voice Isolator, and through Crele Focus 1.1 keeping the first speaker, then Crele Remaster 1 on that voice.
Original
ElevenLabs Voice Isolator
Crele Focus 1.1, then Crele Remaster 1
That is the difference between the two jobs. Voice isolation separates speech from everything that is not speech. Speaker isolation separates one person from everything else, other people’s voices included.
How do you keep only one person’s voice and clean it up?
Crele does it in two steps on a free account: speaker isolation with Crele Focus 1.1 keeps the person you mark and removes everyone else, then Crele Remaster 1 rebuilds that voice as if recorded on a close microphone. Both run in the browser on a phone or a computer. To try the first step with no account, the free Isolate a Speaker tool runs the first 45 seconds of a recording on Crele Focus 1.
1Add the recording to speaker isolation
In the Crele app, open Speaker isolation and drop in the recording or the video, or press Choose a file. A free account runs files up to 15 minutes on Crele Focus 1.1.
2Mark three to ten seconds of the person alone
Under Speaker to keep, mark three to ten seconds where only the person you want is talking. Clean beats long: a sample with another voice in it teaches the tool both. If they are never alone in the file, switch to Upload and add a short recording of them from another time.
3Run it and download the voice
Press the arrow. You can leave the page while it works: the result waits for you under Recents. It plays the original beside the voice it kept, Voice 1, marked Closest match, on a short clip, or Isolated on a long one. Listen against the original, then download that voice.
4Clean up the voice with Crele Remaster 1
Open Speech enhancement and drop in the voice you downloaded. Crele Remaster 1 takes out what noise and room are left and rebuilds the voice as if recorded on a close microphone. Download the result. A free account runs files up to 5 minutes.
5Put the voice back under the video
If the recording was a video, mute its own sound in your editor and lay the voice on its own track from the clip's first frame. It runs as long as the file, so it stays in sync with the picture.
When won’t this work?
- Two voices that sound alike. Give Crele Focus 1.1 the longest clean sample you have, up to ten seconds. Similar voices are the hardest case for today’s models.
- Someone talks over the person the whole time. Where Crele Focus 1.1 cannot tell the two voices apart, that stretch comes back silent rather than carrying the other person’s words.
- The person is never alone in the file. Switch to Upload and add a short recording of them from another time.
- Names and numbers in a faint voice. Crele Remaster 1 regenerates speech, so where the voice is barely there it can swap a word. Check names and numbers against the original.
Questions
- Is a voice isolator the same as a background voice remover?
- Partly. A voice isolator removes noise, music and chatter from across a room, and keeps speech, but it is not told whose speech to keep, so a second person on the same microphone stays. Removing the voice next to yours takes speaker isolation: Crele Focus 1.1 learns one person from three to ten seconds of them talking alone, keeps them, and removes the other voices along with the noise.
- What is a good alternative to ElevenLabs Voice Isolator?
- It depends on what is in the way. For noise and chatter from across a room, Crele Remaster 1 takes them out and hands the voice back as if recorded on a close microphone in a treated room. For a second person on the same microphone, run Crele Focus 1.1 first, which is told who to keep, then Crele Remaster 1 on the voice it kept. Both run on a free Crele account.
- Can I keep two people and remove everyone else?
- Yes, one person at a time. Run the recording once for each person you want to keep, marking that person each time, then put the voices on their own tracks in your editor.
- Does it work on a video?
- Yes. Drop in an MP4 or MOV and the app reads the sound out of it. Speaker isolation returns the voice as 16 kHz audio and speech enhancement with Crele Remaster 1 as 44.1 kHz audio, not as a video, so lay the voice back under the clip in your editor from the first frame, where it lines up with the picture.
- Will it change the voice?
- Crele Focus 1.1 rebuilds the voice it keeps instead of cutting it out of the recording, so it comes back clearer than the take, tuned for speech. Crele Remaster 1 regenerates speech, which is how it takes a room out, and where the voice is barely there it can swap a word, so check names and numbers against the original.
- Is it free?
- Yes. A free Crele account runs speaker isolation on files up to 15 minutes, with 300 minutes a month, and Crele Remaster 1 on files up to 5 minutes, with 60 minutes a month. To try isolation first, the Isolate a Speaker tool on this site runs the first 45 seconds of a recording in your browser.
Keep the voice you want, drop the rest
Make a free Crele account to run the whole recording through Crele Focus 1.1, then Crele Remaster 1, and download the voice you keep.
If everyone in the file belongs and the problem is noise, start with Crele Remaster 1 instead.
Related: how to make one voice clear when other people are talking · why noise removal can’t remove a second voice · how to remove one person’s voice from a video
