How to use audacity to create MP3's of your favorite music from YouTube or an online source
Audacity is a great free music editing and recording tool that is compatible with both PC and Mac's. You can use Audacity to create and edit wav files for presentations, commercials, radio or ipod broadcasts, and multimedia projects. Audacity can also be used to easily record music from an online source - such as YouTube - and can be used to edit the song, then export it as an MP3 so that you can add it to your own music library. If you can not find your favorite MP3's on itunes, you want to record a mix from a streaming site, or you find some music that you really like on YouTube or another online source - here is how you use the free Audacity tool to record that music to an MP3 that you can save.
Other People Are Reading
Instructions
-
-
1
Go to the link here and in the link's resource and download the Audacity program to your desktop.
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/
-
2
Next go to this link here and provided in the link's resource and download the file called the LAME MP3 encoder to your desktop as well.
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/faq?s=install&i=lame-mp3
-
-
3
Next unzip both of these downloads, and install the Audacity program. Once the Audacity program install is complete, unzip the LAME MP3 encoder onto your desktop. We are not going to do anything with this now, as we will get back to that in a later step.
-
4
Now open up the Audacity program. You should have a new project screen like the one shown here. If not, just go to file, new.
-
5
Next go to the Edit tab, and scroll down and click on the Preferences option. You can also hit ctrl + P to get the preferences dialog box to open up. Click on the File Formats tab. It should look like the image below.
-
6
Next look in the third box down called MP3 Export Setup. Your box should say "MP3 Library Version: not installed" - or something similar to this. Over to the right of this is a button called "Find Library". Click this button and you will get a dialog box that opens up similar to the one in the image below. This is where we are going to install that LAME MP3 file that you downloaded in step 2. Click Yes.
-
7
Go to your desktop and then open up the folder that you downloaded and expanded in Step 2-3. The folder should be called "libmp3lame-3.98.2". Open this folder up, and you will see a file called lame_enc.dll (look at the image below for a reference).
-
8
Click it to install it into your audacity library. Your MP3 library version should show that it was installed. See the image below for reference.
-
9
Now close out the preferences dialog box. We are almost ready to start recording, but we need to make a few critical adjustments to the input and output volume. I have found that adjusting these in various combinations make a really big difference in the final sound quality of your recording. Keep these too high, and you get a sound like a blown-out speaker. Keep these too low, and you miss the full range of the vocals and instruments. You can play with these later once you get the hang of using the program, but for now, adjust the input volume (the slider next to the microphone at the top) to 0.2, and the output volume (the speaker slider next to the microphone) to 0.4. See the image below for reference.
-
10
Now you are ready to record. Go to your online music source and open up the player or file. We want to make sure that the file is fully loaded before we start to record. My example below is a song I found on YouTube that I know is not on iTunes. I have allowed this to fully load (full red bar) and I have put the song on pause. YOU NEED TO DO THIS BEFORE YOU START RECORDING - this is getting the song queued up to record. See my image below for reference
-
11
Now, you want to try to have both application open on the same screen if you are using a single monitor so that you can switch between Audacity and your online source. If you are using dual monitors, you can have on app on one screen and the other on the other screen. In this step, we are going to press record on Audacity first - then play the music from our online source. The reason we are doing this is that Audacity is a music file editor and recorder - so if we have dead air at the beginning of the song, it is no big deal because we can delete it. So using the image I attached as a reference point - click the red circle on the Audacity player to start recording - this will be shown by a flat line running across the screen.
-
12
Go to your source and press play. As soon as you do that, switch back over to your Audacity program, and you should see that it is now recording a wav file. If you are only getting a flat line, that means that Audacity is not recording from your speakers. Check the input options box to make sure that you still have the "Stereo mix" selected and try again. If you do have this selected, try the "line in" option. I do not know how you have your audio board set up, but the default to record from an online source is "Stereo Mix". See my image below for an example of what you should start seeing.
-
13
Let the song finish, and also let Audacity record some dead air at the end of the song. This will ensure that you have a nice buffer at the beginning and end of the song to edit later. Press the Orange stop square when you are done.
-
14
Congratulations, you just recorded the raw music file. I recommend that you press the green playback button to make sure that the recording volume sounds good. If not, adjust the input and output volumes and repeat steps 9-13 above. If the sound has the quality you wanted, then we can move onto the next step.
-
15
Now we are going to edit out that dead air at the front and end of the song so that you are not waiting too long for the song to start, and so that it does not play too long at the end. To do this, simply take the mouse and select the area at the front you want to delete and highlight it. Then go to "edit" and select "cut". The grey area will disappear. See my image below. Now do the same at the back.
-
16
Save your project to your desktop and name it.
-
17
Now, we are going to export the file to an MP3 that you can use in your audio file player. Go to file, and choose "export as MP3". Save this MP3 to your desktop so you can find it later. See image for reference.
-
18
You will get a dialog box that open up and allows you to enter in the artist, song title, and music category. Fill this all in and then continue.
-
19
You are done. Your file is now saved on your desktop as an MP3. Open it up, enjoy it, and do this to more song files you like online.
-
1
