According to this invention, if noise generated by operation of a
component such as a rotary drum of a recording/playback apparatus which
operates periodically enters a microphone, noise waveforms can be
extracted and reduced. Data obtained from microphones (6, 7) are
converted into digital data by A/D converters (11, 12) and are supplied
to a control microcomputer (5) and adders (15, 16). The control
microcomputer (5) has a memory which stores input data for respective
mechanical noise generation cycles. The microcomputer (5) calculates the
average of inphase data in each cycle, thereby generating only data of
noise components and storing the result in memories (13, 14). The adders
(15, 16) output data without noise components by subtracting the inphase
data stored in the memories (13, 14) from input current data.