VLC Media Player, another free open-source program, can convert the audio track from a video file to mp3, WAV, and some other file formats. It's easy, though the process isn't 100% intuitive, but once you figure it out, it just takes five seconds to get it started. However, it doesn't have editing capabilities like Audacity (which I do use for editing), but I don't have to re-record the sound.

I just tried opening a video file in Audacity, which didn't work, but it suggested using FFmpeg, another program that I didn't know about until just now, so I don't know if this is an alternative for isolating the audio track into a new file or not.

If you do choose to record the sound on Audacity as a playback, switch the source to computer playback if possible rather than using your computer's microphone for better audio quality. See https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/tutorial_recording_audio_playing_on_the_computer.html for more info about that.

John Puschock
Seattle
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