---
license: other
license_name: desert-ant-labs-source-available-1.0
license_link: https://license.desertant.ai/1.0
language:
- en
tags:
- audio
- speech-enhancement
- denoising
- dereverberation
- on-device
- core-ml
- onnx
pipeline_tag: audio-to-audio
---

# Clear: on-device speech enhancement

48 kHz on-device speech enhancement. Takes noisy mono or stereo audio (phone mic, untreated room, traffic), returns a podcast-ready file: denoised, dereverbed, voice warm and present.

## Try it

- **Live demo:** [desert-ant-labs/clear-demo](https://huggingface.co/spaces/desert-ant-labs/clear-demo): drop in a recording and hear raw vs cleaned, fully in your browser.
- **iOS / macOS:** [`clear-swift`](https://github.com/Desert-Ant-Labs/clear-swift): Swift package; both variants bundled, works offline.
- **Android / JVM:** [`clear-kotlin`](https://github.com/Desert-Ant-Labs/clear-kotlin): Kotlin SDK via JitPack.
- **JavaScript / TypeScript:** [`@desert-ant-labs/clear`](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@desert-ant-labs/clear): npm package for Node + browser ([source](https://github.com/Desert-Ant-Labs/clear-js)).

For commercial licensing above 100k MAU, email <licensing@desertant.ai>.

## Variants

| Variant | Character | When to use |
|---|---|---|
| **`clear-studio`** | Quiet, studio-like; silences near zero | Default. Works across the full range of input quality: phone audio, laptop mic, untreated rooms, USB / XLR podcast captures. |
| **`clear-natural`** | Room tone, breath, lip texture preserved | Treated podcast studios, USB / XLR captures, voiceover where the original sound is intentional. |

If the source is already clean and you want the model to stay invisible, pick `clear-natural`. Otherwise `clear-studio` is the default.

## Files

Both variants share the same architecture and realtime cost; only the weights differ.

Both variants are **6-bit palettized** (k-means LUT), ~5× smaller than the fp32 weights with no perceptible quality loss (DNSMOS OVRL within ~0.02 of the float model).

| Variant | File | Format | Size |
|---|---|---|---:|
| `clear-studio` | `clear-studio.mlmodelc/` | Core ML, 6-bit palettized, precompiled | ~1.9 MB |
| `clear-studio` | `clear-studio.onnx` | ONNX, 6-bit palettized (fp16-stored) | ~4.5 MB |
| `clear-natural` | `clear-natural.mlmodelc/` | Core ML, 6-bit palettized, precompiled | ~1.9 MB |
| `clear-natural` | `clear-natural.onnx` | ONNX, 6-bit palettized (fp16-stored) | ~4.5 MB |

The ONNX keeps fp32 inputs/outputs, so host code is unchanged. The Core ML `.mlmodelc` is precompiled (load it directly; no `.mlpackage` compile step).

## Use

### ONNX

```python
from huggingface_hub import hf_hub_download
import onnxruntime as ort

path    = hf_hub_download("desert-ant-labs/clear", "clear-studio.onnx")
session = ort.InferenceSession(path, providers=["CPUExecutionProvider"])
```

## Inputs and outputs

- **Architecture:** DeepFilterNet 3 (DFN3-half).
- **Sample rate:** 48 kHz, mono or stereo (per-channel inference).
- **Inference contract:** `spec` / `feat_erb` / `feat_spec` → `spec_enhanced`. STFT, ERB, and ISTFT are host-side DSP, not part of the model graph.

## Performance

Both variants run at the same speed. Enhancing a 5-minute clip on the Apple Neural Engine:

| Device | Chip | Mono | Stereo |
|---|---|---:|---:|
| iPhone 15 Pro | A17 Pro | 4.88 s (61× realtime) | 6.53 s (46×) |
| iPhone 17 Pro | A19 Pro | 3.70 s (81× realtime) | 5.16 s (58×) |

Cold model load is ~0.6 s; later loads ~100 ms via the system ANE cache.

## Limitations

- Trained on English speech; non-English speech still benefits but has not been measured against per-language ground truth.
- Heavy background music or multi-speaker overlap degrades quality.
- Mastering is informational only; verify against the platform's actual loudness target before publishing.

## Built on

- [DeepFilterNet 3](https://github.com/Rikorose/DeepFilterNet) by Rikorose, MIT. Fine-tuned on the Desert Ant Labs speech corpus.

## License

[Desert Ant Labs Source-Available License](https://license.desertant.ai/1.0). Free for
most apps; a commercial license is required at scale. Full terms are at the link.
Licensing: <licensing@desertant.ai>.

## Citation

```bibtex
@software{clear_2026,
  title  = {Clear: on-device speech enhancement},
  author = {Desert Ant Labs},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://huggingface.co/desert-ant-labs/clear},
}
```

---

© 2026 Desert Ant Labs · <https://desertant.ai>