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Audacity can't edit videos, but it can edit the audio from videos. It's easy to import audio into an audio-editor for grabbing sound clips. I found this to be better than my previous analog recording workflow.
This is especially useful for podcasters who review movies, discuss TV shows, or need an audio excerpt from a video.
Separate video edition (completely different recording session) coming soon!
1. Prepare your video file
Audacity works best with MP4 videos, but other QuickTime formats work on OS X, too.
Videos with digital-rights management (DRM) can't be opened by Audacity. So if you have one of these and you have legal plans to use the audio clip for the sake of commentary, review, or criticism, then find a tool to remove the DRM and convert your video to MP4.
Learn what podcasters need to know about copyright laws from my previous episode with Gordon Firemark.
2. Install FFmpeg
By default, Audacity can't open video files. Simply install the free FFmpeg plugin to allow Audacity to import and export many more audio and video formats.
3. Open your DRM-free video in Audacity
With Audacity setup and your video free of DRM, simply drag it into an Audacity window to have Audacity convert the audio for use.
You may want to save this audio if you ever want to edit it again, or you can discard it.
For convenience, you can normalize your audio and convert it to mono (if your podcast will be in mono). This will make it easier to see and hear the audio as you edit, but it's note important to the quality of the audio.
4. Find and select the audio you want by timecode
Watch your video to find the clip you want and look at the time. If you know you want the audio from 12 minutes in, go to 00:12:00 in your audio and select as much as you want.
When you have audio selected, you can press play (Spacebar) to hear just your selection. Include about half to a whole second of extra audio (but no extra words) at the beginning and end.
5. Extract the sound clip
With your excerpt selected, there are three ways you can extract it for your use.
A. Duplicate selections and Export Multiple
This is the easiest method for batch processing because you're working with all clips in a single project.
- With your audio selected, press Ctrl-D (Windows/Linux) or Cmd-D (OS X) to duplicate the selected audio to a new track.
- Either Solo your new track and edit/enhance as necessary (coming up), or continue finding and selecting more excerpts and repeat step 1.
- Select all your tracks and Normalize (see main #7 below).
- From the Track Control Panel, optionally name each track as you want its file name to be.
- Go to File menu > Export Multiple…
- Select your file-naming preference and Export.
- Re-import your new WAV files into separate projects for further editing, process them externally, or leave them as is for use.
B. Export selection
This is the quickest way to make and name your clips as you go.
- With your audio selected, go to File menu > Export Selection….
- Enter the file name you wish for this audio.
- Find and select more excerpts and repeat steps 1–2.
- Re-import your new WAV files into separate projects for further editing, process them externally, or leave them as is for use.
C. Copy and paste to new file
This is best for editing each clip independently and getting a close-up view of your audio.
- With your audio selected, copy it (Ctrl/Cmd-C).
- Create a new project (Ctrl/Cmd-N).
- Paste your audio (Ctrl/Cmd-V).
- Edit and process as necessary.
6. Edit as needed
Leave about half to a whole second at the beginning and end of your audio clip.
You may want to edit the inside of your audio for conciseness, relevance, or clarity. For example:
- you may need only one side of a multiperson conversation,
- you may want to remove the pauses between phrases that don't transition well from video to audio, or
- you may want to cut out things to make the clip more understandable.
7. Normalize
After you've edited your audio clip, then normalize it. I recommend to -1dB or even -0.1dB. Audio from professionally made movies and TV shows are usually already processed to how they need to be. And since most videos have ambiant noise, many audio enhancements (like compression and limiting) can enhance the wrong parts and make your audio harder to hear.
Normalization increases the whole volume of the track until the loudest point is a certain amplitude (volume). Because these peaks may be rare, it may be all right if that target amplitude is higher than you would normally prefer (such as a character yells).
8. Add fades in and out (recommended)
After you've normalized the audio, then I suggest some subtle fades in and out. These shouldn't be very long, but they can make the inclusion of the audio clip much smoother.
Simple select as much audio that you want to fade at the beginning or end of your clip, then go to the Effects menu and choose Fade In or Fade Out, respectively. The more audio you select for your fade, the slower the fade will be.
I recommend 1/4–1/2 a second for a fade, but sometimes a full second for fade-in can be good.
Fades are especially great for music clips.
9. Export as WAV
When you're finished, export your clips as uncompressed WAV files. These work great for either “direct-to-drive” recorder or post-production. I always recommend working with uncompressed audio until you make the final MP3.
New email address for Zune/Windows Phone podcasts
Rob Greenlee is still managing podcasts for Microsoft, but there's a new email address for adding or updating your podcasts in the Zune/Windows Phone directory.
Just email your RSS feed to podcasts@microsoft.com. If you're updating podcast information (like your cover art, description, title, or feed URL), mention that in your email.
Learn WordPress and Audacity in upcoming webinars
The core software to successful blogging or podcasting is WordPress. But if you don't know how to use it, you'll struggle with building your online platform. Tickets are now on sale for my next “Learn WordPress” webinar on Saturday, April 27 at noon (EDT/GMT-4).
My first Audacity webinar was a great success and was highly praised. This is where I teach the basics and some of the more advanced techniques of using Audacity for podcasting and other audio-editing. If you want to edit your own audio for high quality and with efficiency, then join me for my “Learn Audacity” webinar on Saturday, May 18, at noon (EDT/GMT-4).
Tickets are $100 for either of these 2-hour webinars (including Q&A), or $175 for both. Reserve your space today!
Need personalized podcasting help?
I no longer offer one-on-one consulting outside of Podcasters' Society, but request a consultant here and I'll connect you with someone I trust to help you launch or improve your podcast.
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Disclosure
This post may contain links to products or services with which I have an affiliate relationship and may receive compensation from your actions through such links. However, I don't let that corrupt my perspective and I don't recommend only affiliates.
Related Content
Are there any legal problems with using clips from films?
It depends on how much you use and how you intend to use it. Like I mention in the podcast audio, the “fair use” clause of copyright law allows to use copyrighted material for the sake of “criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.” Parody is also allowed.
But using copyrighted material as your own is not allowed. Such as using a TV show theme song as your podcast theme song.
Listen to my episode with Gordon Firemark about copyrights for more detail.
Just curious as to why you have to convert the files. I have been able to record the dvd/video/youtube audio directly to audacity through the stereo mix. Then normalize and fade then export as a wav
Stereo mix isn’t easy to do on every PC. On some, it’s very hard or requires extra, confusing steps. Stereo mix also requires you to wait for the whole recording to finish and maybe monitor it along the way.
Dropping the compatible files directly into Audacity means you don’t have to wait for the analog recording process. You’ll also get a higher quality recording this way.
Converting the files, in my case, removes the digital rights management so I can use the audio material under Fair Use allowance of the copyright law so I can comment and review.
For easier to get audio is get Total Video Converter which support extract audio from video, movies and karaoke. Another software is Format Factory which support extract audio from videos. Then, modify the sound (just likes make karaoke without vocal) on Audacity. After finished, combine or mix video and audio into one! Enjoy the newest video!
iDealshare VideoGo can extract audio from video, convert between video formats, audio formats, directly play media files and edit videos.
Hi, thank you for the Audacity tutorial, very useful! I have successfully imported the audio from video MP4 and edited the pitch. I want to add it back to the video and replace the original audio. Please teach me how to do it. I am using MAC computer. Thanks!
Hi, Jonathan! To do that, you’ll need a video-editing program or some other program to re-combine the audio and video together.
The basic steps would be:
1. Import your audio and video.
2. Drop in your processed audio and ensure it aligns with the video’s audio.
3. Mute the video’s own audio.
Hello Daniel. Thanks for the Audacity tutorial. It helps me a lot when I want to record a comedy show and listen to its audio on my phone. I would like to add the tool that I am using before Audacity, it’s called the AceThinker Music Recorder. It helps me a lot whenever I want to record the stand up comedy show of Kevin Hart. With this tool’s capability to record high quality sound, I’m sure that it will help lots of people to have their audio from a TV show or music video. Thanks!
I’ve been using Audacity for some time, mostly to make live audio files but originally to record LPs. I was surprised to find it in a search on how to extract audio from .MOV files. I started to read what you have here, but I just want the audio from a home made video so I just dropped the .MOV into Audacity, and exported it as an .mp3.
It easily saved the audio as a 3.4MB file from a 117MB .mov file.