Short answer: as of Resolve 21, free DaVinci Resolve has no tool built to remove music from a clip. Resolve Studio ($295) has Voice Isolation, which isolates the voice, plus Music Remixer and Dialogue Separator. Blackmagic doesn’t describe those two as removing only the music, and we haven’t tested them on that. To take the music out and keep the dialogue and everything else, export the clip, run it through SoundScrub (Remove, “background music”), and reimport it.

You’re editing in Resolve and one clip has music sitting under the dialogue. A café playlist, a car stereo, whatever was playing when you hit record. You can’t reshoot it, and the music won’t peel off the voice on its own. Here’s what works and what doesn’t.

What Resolve gives you out of the box

The good tool is Voice Isolation. It’s AI, and it separates the voice from competing sound. Two catches. As of Resolve 21, it’s listed under Studio, so the free version doesn’t have it and you’d pay $295 to upgrade. And it’s described as isolating the voice, not as removing a sound you name, so it isn’t the tool for keeping the music and removing something else.

Studio also has Music Remixer, an AI effect that splits a music mix into voice, drums, bass, guitar and other parts. Blackmagic’s example is turning a vocal track into an instrumental. It also has a Dialogue Separator, which rebalances dialogue against background sound and room reverb, with controls for voice, background and ambience. Blackmagic’s description doesn’t mention music, and we haven’t tested it on music under speech, so we can’t say how well it takes music out. Both are listed under Studio.

Dialogue Leveler is listed for both free and Studio Resolve 21, and it is a leveling tool, not a music remover.

The Fairlight FX effects Noise Reduction and De-Hummer are meant for steady hum and hiss (the De-Esser tames sibilance). They aren’t built to separate a song from a voice when both are baked into the same recording.

So if you’re on Studio and you just need the voice clean, Voice Isolation is built for that. If you’re on free Resolve, or you need to go after one specific sound instead of just keeping the voice, you’ve hit the wall.

The plugins editors install

For heavier work people add third-party tools. iZotope RX has dedicated Music Rebalance and Dialogue Isolate modules, but it’s a paid, heavyweight tool and overkill if you only run into this now and then. Either way you’re installing a plugin, managing a license, and keeping it updated.

Where SoundScrub comes in

SoundScrub is its own desktop app, not a plugin. You drag a video or audio file onto it, pick what to remove or keep, and it hands you back the file with the new audio. It covers the gaps Resolve’s built-ins leave.

The obvious one is free Resolve. As of Resolve 21 it doesn’t include Voice Isolation, and you’d need to buy Studio for $295 to get it. With SoundScrub you don’t. You drag the clip in, hit Remove, pick “background music”, and get it back with the voice intact.

Removing background music in SoundScrub: the clip dropped in, Remove selected, and “background music” picked from the list of sounds.

It also covers what Voice Isolation, as described, doesn’t. Voice Isolation is described as isolating the voice. SoundScrub lets you name the sound instead, so you can remove a dog barking but keep the music, pull a passing siren out of a street scene, or take out a phone that rang mid-take. You type what you want gone, and that’s what it targets.

And there’s no plugin to babysit. Nothing to install, no license seat. You pay $0.25 per 30 seconds when you use it and nothing when you don’t.

How to remove music from a clip in DaVinci Resolve (free version works)

A panel that does this inside Resolve is in the works. If you’d rather stay on your timeline, join the waitlist for the DaVinci Resolve plugin. For now, here’s the round trip with the desktop app. It works the same in free Resolve and Studio.

Render the clip as a video from the Deliver page, or use Quick Export.
Drop the file into SoundScrub, set the mode to Remove, and pick “background music”.
Run it. You usually get two takes back with the music taken out and the voice kept. Listen to both and keep the one that sounds better.
Reimport it through the Media page and drop it in place of the original clip.

The audio is already swapped in, so there’s nothing to mute by hand, and the quality matches what you rendered. If the music is as loud as the dialogue, expect it to come down rather than vanish completely, so listen to the result before you cut over.

Using Premiere instead? The same round trip is in removing background music in Premiere Pro. For the editor-neutral version and the free online options, see how to remove background music from a video.

Common questions

Can DaVinci Resolve remove background music?

Not in the free version of Resolve 21. Studio’s Voice Isolation isolates the voice, Music Remixer splits music mixes into parts, and Dialogue Separator rebalances dialogue against background and ambience. We found no description of any of them as removing only the music while keeping the dialogue and sound effects, and we haven’t tested them on that.

How do I remove background music in DaVinci Resolve for free?

Resolve’s free version can’t do it by itself. Use the round trip above: the free editor handles the export and reimport, and SoundScrub does the separation. SoundScrub is not free, it costs $0.25 per 30 seconds with no subscription.