Voice and text chat service Discord is rolling out a new beta feature which will suppress background noises to make conversations clearer, even when you are in a noisy environment.
Discord says it is announcing the feature as more people are working, studying, and hanging out at home due to the global pandemic of coronavirus, officially called COVID-19. Especially for those who live with family members or housemates, it can be hard to find a quiet place to talk free from background noise from vacuuming, other people talking or watching TV, or moving around the house.
The Discord noise suppression feature has been developed along with Krisp.ai, a noise-canceling app which uses machine learning to block out background sounds. It filters out background noises around you and your microphone, so it won’t filter the noises around the person or people you’re speaking to.
Discord advises the feature “works best in environments where there is a lot of non-human voice background noise,” but warns that enabling it “if you are in a quiet environment and have a high-quality mic you may notice a decline in voice quality.” In these situations, you can turn the feature off to get the best possible sound.
Given recent security concerns over video conferencing software like Zoom and previous concerns over smart speakers recording voice data which is analyzed by real people, Discord assures users that it will not share any voice recordings with third parties.
“Heads up: No voice, user, video or any data is ever sent or shared outside of Discord,” the company said in a blog post. “Krisp runs on your device to cancel out noise — no data is ever sent to their servers under any circumstances.”
The feature is being released in early beta, and Discord says it will roll out to all desktop users, but they should remember it is still being worked on. The feature will also be coming to mobile eventually.
To enable noise suppression, enter a voice or video chat and toggle the noise suppression button. Or, you can enable Krisp by going to Settings, then to App Settings > Voice and Video > Advanced > Noise Suppression.
