It is highly unlikely your Audacity capture will be too quiet. So, if you have distortion during the louder parts of the audio, lower your volume settings and start the recording over.ģ. This will not be the case if the input volume is too high. I find that when the volume settings are correct, Audacity captures sound nearly indistinguishable from the sound you hear through YouTube. Listen to your recording all the way through. Then, select the section of audio you want to delete by holding down the left button on your mouse and dragging it over the section. To trim the ends, make sure the “Selection Tool” button is pressed. Letting Audacity roll for a few seconds at the beginning and end of recording prevents you from accidentally clipping the audio and having to start over. It’s nearly impossible not to record a few extra seconds at each end of a capture when recording with Audacity. Now that you have captured the audio from YouTube, it’s time to tweak it using the tools right there in the Audacity interface.

You will delete these when it’s done recording. It’s okay if you capture a few extra seconds on either side of the sound clip you want to record. Let the entire video (or section of the video you want to capture) play.Īudacity will show that it’s recording and the audio waves will appear in the program interface as they capture. Start playing the YouTube video you want to record. You must do it through your computer volume and YouTube.ĥ. You will not be able to use the mixer function on Audacity with these settings. This will sound low to you, but be more than adequate for Audacity on most systems. I recommend setting the speaker volume on your computer to no more than “10” (out of “100”) and the volume on YouTube to about 1/3 of full volume. So, to prevent distortion, you need low sound input. Pull the video up on YouTube and adjust the volume settings. Note: When you choose these settings, the mixer on Audacity will automatically set the input volume to maximum.Ĥ. Then, choose Soundflower in the Recording Device menu. Don’t choose “microphone,” which will record you instead of the audio from YouTube.įirst, you must download and install Soundflower, which acts as a virtual sound card, allowing the audio playing through your computer to pass through to Audacity. In the second drop-down menu (the Recording Device menu), choose “Speaker” or whatever name the built-in speakers on your computer are called. In the first drop-down menu (the Audio Host menu), choose “Windows WASAPI”.ģ. It looks a little suspect, but it’s their official download host, and I’ve never had any problems with a download.Ģ. If you don’t already have Audacity on your computer, you can download it for Mac, Windows or Linux here – These instructions are for both Windows and Mac. The first step in using Audacity to convert YouTube videos to MP3 is to capture the audio. Edit Audio in Audacity Record Audio from YouTube

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