Extract and Edit YouTube Audio with Audacity.
Here is a tutorial on audio extraction (and editing) from
YouTube videos… I have not refined it yet, but it is doable with the two free
tools listed below and Audacity. You can follow along by downloading the software
below from their respective sites and the video by copying this link into
Save2PC. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY-04x0GZgA
Save2PC Light
This software is needed to save the videos to your pc.
The Freeware version only saves as Mpeg, Avi and Flv. Other
versions (paid) can save to many formats including Mp3 and Wav, which would
eliminate the need for the extraction software.
Pazera
This software is needed to extract the audio from the video.
It will save it as Mp3, Wav, Wma and more.
Save2PC
In the Save To: box, select a location to save your
file.
In the Save As: box select a file format. I used AVI
because I did not get audio when I used Mpeg.
In the Download From: box, I left it set at Auto.
In the Link: box, you only want the address to
the video. You don’t want the descriptive text or web tags.
For this example I copied only the web address from the
first video (Pet Cougar in Heat) from a post on HW and then copied it into the
Link box. Notice I did not copy the #ws portion of the address.


When copying from YouTube the process may be different, but you
still only want the direct address.
Hit start. When finished you will check your Save To:
location and preview the video. If it copied correctly you can move on. If it
did not, you may need different codec’s or try to save as a different file
format.
Pazera
To extract the audio from the video you will need to click
“Add files”.
Select an output location or the default will place the
extracted audio in the source (video) folder.
Select “Output Format”. For this lesson I have selected MP3.
I also left the Audio settings at “Auto”.
Select “Convert” to extract the audio.

Another (and easier way) to extract audio from YouTube
videos is to use “Youtube 2 MP3”. http://www.youtube-2-mp3.com/
Just copy the video address into
the Video URL box, choose a location to store your MP3 and hit Download.

Open your audio file in Audacity. This file is just over 3
minutes long with some clinks/clanks and some people talking so we are going to
shorten it and clean it up a bit.
In the first 32 seconds you will notice that the cat is
calling at low volumes and that is where you can really hear the people
talking. I want to remove the talking and the dead sound in the beginning and
remove some other sounds in the middle of the file.
Zoom in on the file by clicking on the magnifying glass with
an X on it. I placed the cursor at 32 seconds and then selected back to the
beginning.
Hit the delete button on your keyboard and you will remove
the first 32 seconds.
At just under 5 seconds there is also a noise that I want to
remove so I repeated the above process. Just select what you don’t want and hit
delete.
To ensure a smooth transition I selected audio from 4
seconds to 5.5 seconds and pushed the play button.
Between 13 and 14 seconds there is some camera noise that I
want removed so again I select the area to remove and hit delete on the
keyboard.
Then from the 30-second mark to the end, I selected the rest
of the clip and deleted it. Now I only have a 30 second clip that I can export
as a Wav or Mp3 and loop in my electronic call. But first I want to remove some
audio hiss and then boost the sound. You can find out how to do those in the
other Audacity tutorials we have here.
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