Limits
We'd rather lose a download than gain a disappointed user. Here's exactly where CleanTake stops working.
What CleanTake handles
- Steady environmental noise — fans, air-conditioners, electrical hum, constant room tone.
- Recorded speech files — podcasts, voiceovers, online lessons, already-recorded interviews.
What CleanTake does NOT handle
- Overlapping speakers. We tested it: with several voices talking over each other (a busy café), the engine reduces everything evenly — voices included. It cannot isolate one voice from a crowd. This is a different research problem and we don't pretend otherwise.
- Real-time calls. CleanTake processes files after recording. It is not a live meeting noise-cancellation tool.
- Music or extreme distortion. The engine is tuned for speech; feeding it music gives unpredictable results.
- Perfect silence. Noise reduction is a trade-off — push it too far and speech starts to sound watery. We keep the default conservative.
Tested configurations
| Item | Status |
|---|---|
| Environmental room noise (fan/AC hum), real voice | ✅ Tested 2026-09-28 — ≈ 32 dB reduction, voice preserved |
| Café with 4 overlapping voices | ❌ Failed as expected — documented as a hard limit |
| Input formats | WAV / MP3 tested |
| Batch mode | ⏳ In progress — not in the first build |
| macOS / Linux | ⏳ Not planned for first release |
If your use case is outside this scope, CleanTake isn't your tool — and that's fine. We publish failures alongside wins in the changelog.
Last updated: 2026-09-29.