OBS Noise Suppression: The Free RNNoise Filter You Already Installed

By the FreeHush crew · Published July 28, 2026

What's free — everything, within OBS

Does OBS have noise suppression? Yes — no plugin needed

People search for an "OBS noise suppression plugin" and then install things they do not need. OBS Studio ships the filter itself: on every mic or audio source, the Filters menu offers Noise Suppression with a method dropdown, and the two methods inside it, RNNoise and Speex, are compiled into OBS on Windows, macOS and Linux. The only thing that arrives as a separate install is NVIDIA's engine, which appears as a third option, NVIDIA Noise Removal, once NVIDIA’s Broadcast SDK redistributable is installed on an RTX machine. If a download site is offering you an "OBS noise suppression plugin" for the basic job, it is selling you a feature you already have.

RNNoise in OBS: what it is, and why it is the default

RNNoise is a small open-source neural network trained to separate speech from everything that is not speech. Inside OBS it has no settings at all, which is the point: pick it from the dropdown and it runs at full strength on the CPU. OBS’s own documentation calls it the higher-quality method, at the cost of more CPU than Speex. It handles steady noise (fans, air conditioning, hum) and most moderate clatter (keyboard, mouse) well on a single voice, and its known weak spot is the same as every speech-preserving filter: a second voice in the room is speech, so it stays. The older Speex method exists for machines where even that CPU cost matters, and for people who want a slider; its default suppression level is −30 dB and it gets crude quickly past that.

How it holds up

From OBS documentation and the two algorithms' known shapes:

RNNoise for voice streams: the default recommendation. It's a small neural model tuned for speech; steady noise and moderate clatter drop away convincingly, and the CPU cost is light enough to ignore on anything modern. For a talking-head stream or tutorial recording, it's routinely all you need.

Speex when CPU is precious: the older method with an adjustable suppression level — noticeably lighter, noticeably cruder. It's the right pick on genuinely weak hardware, wrong pick if quality matters more than frames.

What to check yourself: record 60 seconds with your usual background (fan on, keyboard busy) with the filter off, then on — OBS makes A/B trivially easy. Also stack order matters: put suppression before any compressor in your filter chain, or you'll amplify the noise before removing it.

Enabling it

1. In OBS, find your mic under Audio Mixer, click the ⋮ → Filters.
2. Click + under Audio Filters and choose Noise Suppression.
3. Pick RNNoise (or Speex if the machine is struggling).
4. Speak with your normal background noise and watch/listen on the mixer meter — then close; it stays active for streams and recordings.
5. Optional order-check: suppression first, then gate/compressor, so downstream effects work on clean audio.

When you'll outgrow it

• Your problem is meetings, not content — you want a system-wide virtual mic (NVIDIA Broadcast on RTX for free, or Krisp, which is paid after a 7-day trial) rather than routing gymnastics.
• You need finer rescue — heavy or variable noise in produced content is better served by post-processing (Audacity for craft, Adobe Enhance or Auphonic for automation).
• You left OBS — the filter doesn't exist outside it; it's a feature, not a product.

RNNoise vs Speex vs NVIDIA: picking the method

The filter's dropdown hides three different engines. RNNoise is the default and the right answer for most people: AI-based, zero configuration, paid for in a little CPU. Speex is the lightweight classic — it adds a suppression slider (default −30 dB) and costs almost nothing, but push the slider hard and it starts eating consonants; move it in small steps. NVIDIA Noise Removal appears if you have an RTX card with the Broadcast SDK installed — it's the Broadcast engine living inside OBS, GPU-billed, and the pick when only OBS needs cleanup and you'd rather not run the separate app.

Filter order: the part everyone gets wrong

OBS applies filters top-to-bottom, and the order changes the result. Noise Suppression goes first — let it lower the floor. A Noise Gate — or OBS's gentler Expander filter, which turns the floor down instead of slamming it shut — goes after it, with an easier job now that the floor is quiet. Compressors and limiters come last; compress before suppressing and you've amplified the exact hiss you're trying to delete. Drag to reorder in the Filters list. And remember the scope: this chain cleans your stream and recordings — your meeting apps never hear OBS filters. For calls, that's your app's built-in toggle (or Krisp, paid after its trial), compared in the desktop roundup.

Quick questions