Remove High Pitch Sounds with the Notch Filter in Premiere Pro

When getting into video, I learned the hard way. Pretty much every single thing I could screw up, I did. One of those areas was audio. And audio is major!

For some reason all of my footage had this loud, high pitched, ringing sound that was present in every single clip from start to finish. Was it my mic? Was it the camera settings or the battery?

I did a bit of reading to learn more and found that audio issues such as high pitched sounds or buzzing can be caused by a number of things from:

A mic with low battery
Your camera does not recognize the mic and uses native audio
Your mic is in the wrong slot
Other settings and camera errors

Regardless of the cause, what do you do if you have a bunch of clips with the high pitched squealing noise? You use the notch filter in Premiere Pro.

How to Use the Notch Filter in Premiere Pro

Step by step tutorial for quickly applying the Notch Filter to your clips.

Go to the effects panel and search for the Notch Filter. (Audio Effects > Filter and EQ > Notch Filter)
Double click or drag to apply to your clip.
Look for the line that says ‘Custom Setup’ in your Effect Controls panel and click ‘Edit’.
Play your clip and watch the waveforms.
If you have a high pitched sound interfering with the audio, you’ll see a spiking line to the right side.
Choose point #6 and drag it to the right/down to cover the high pitched sounds.

Before moving point #6, see the little spike to the right side?

After dragging point #6 down to cover the high pitched sound.

With just a single Audio Effect applied to your clips you can fix bad audio and remove that annoying high pitched sound! Whether you had a bad mic, or some other audio issues, the Notch Filter is a great tool to use for adjusting the waveforms. Read more about the Notch Filter effect from Adobe.