Copy a clip's sound into Media with the Extract tab

Sometimes you want a clip's sound twice: once where it is, and once as a file you can move around. The Extract tab makes that second copy as a standalone audio file inside your project. You can then trim it, fade it, shift it in time, or reuse it elsewhere in the cut.

Extract a clip's audio

1. Click a video clip on the timeline to select it.
2. Open the Extract tab in the right panel. It sits after Volume and before Framing.
3. Press Extract on the Extract audio row.
4. Wait while the button reads "Extracting…". A small spinner also shows on the Extract tab itself, so you can switch to another tab or close the panel and still see the work is running.

When it finishes, two things have happened. The sound is saved in your project's Media as a file named after the video, ending in "audio.wav". A matching audio clip is also placed on the soundtrack, starting where the video clip starts, and it is selected so the right panel now shows the audio clip's tabs.

If the soundtrack is busy at that spot, the new clip slides to the next free slot, so it never lands on top of an existing sound.

What the copy holds

The extraction covers only the part of the source you are using. If you trimmed the clip to a 12-second stretch of a longer recording, you get those 12 seconds. The sound comes at the source's own pace, so a clip you sped up or slowed down gives back sound at normal speed.

Extract copies the sound and leaves the video clip as it was. Both play, so you will hear the sound twice until you act. When you only want the extracted copy, select the video clip, open the Volume tab, and turn on Mute audio.

That makes the extracted clip the one you control. Select it and use its tabs to trim it, add a Fade in or Fade out, set its Volume, or lower everything else with the Duck tab.

Reuse the file

Because the copy lives in Media, you can drag it out again later. A few ways to use it:

• Lay a clip's room sound under a different shot, so a cutaway keeps the same atmosphere.
• Keep a spoken line from one take and place it over a different picture.
• Move the sound a little earlier or later than the picture with the audio clip's Move tab.

Check that you have the right to use any sound you reuse.

When Extract stops with a message

Two messages cover the common cases:

• A photo clip shows "Extracting audio only works on video clips."
• A clip whose file has no audio shows "This clip has no audio to extract."

On a narrow screen, the Extract button appears in a strip under the preview, and it works the same way.

Extract or Detach

Extract leaves the clip's sound where it is and adds a copy. To move the sound off the clip so the clip goes silent in one step, use the Detach audio command on the clip's menu.

Next step

Open DepCut, select a video clip, and press Extract to see the audio file appear in Media.