Change the audio in a video file

Replacing the audio of a video usually means opening the video in an editing program, changing the audio track, and re-exporting. If you are unlucky, you don't even have the source files.

There are many reasons why you want to change the audio of a video, maybe

• there is unwanted sound in the background
• your voice doesn't sound as good as it could
• you just want to try another audio track on a file that you have received from your producer

I like to make quick screen recordings that I want to share on social media, for example. To add background music, I don't want to go into Adobe Premiere first.

Here, I will show you an easy trick to change the audio without having to re-export your video.

What do I need?

You will need the following:

• Your video file. This is a file in ".mp4" format, ".avi" or ".mov" format. This can either be a rendered video or a recording from your camera.
• An audio file that you wish to replace in the video, like ".wav" or ".mp3". Or nothing, if you just want to remove the audio from your video.
• You can use a video conversion tool such as FFmpeg. It is a command line application that allows all kinds of video and audio conversions. You can use FFmpeg to convert an image sequence to a video, or use it for our purpose to replace the audio tracks in a video without re-exporting the file.

When it comes to FFmpeg, it gets pretty technical. Instead, we use Anchorpoint, the collaborative file browser for content creators. Anchorpoint works like a file browser and adds several useful features for content creators. It uses FFmpeg, but hides all the technical details that make it possible to change the audio track with the click of a button.

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Remove the audio from a video file

• To remove the audio from a video, browse to the video file in Anchorpoint.
• Right-click on your video file and choose “Change Audio of Video” from the drop-down menu that appears.

• Select “Remove Audio” from this next window and press Convert.

• Anchorpoint will save the new video as a new file. It automatically adds a version number and never overwrites existing files. In our example, it will create a new file called “Abstract backgrounds_v001.mov”. Learn more about incremental version control in Anchorpoint.

Replace the audio of a video file

• Replacing the audio is very similar
• Browse to a video file you want to change the audio of, right click and choose "Change audio of video" from the context menu.
• Deselect "Remove Audio" if it's selected by default.
• Click "Browse" to specify where your new audio file is stored on your computer.
• Press Convert to apply the new audio track! Again, Anchorpoint will create a new version of your file.

An advanced feature is "Take longest length". This option controls what happens with files of different lengths. Imagine you have a video that is five minutes long and an audio file that is just two minutes long. If "Take longest length" is turned on, the resulting video will be five minutes long, the audio will just stop as soon as it's over. With the option turned off, the resulting video will be just two minutes long, cutting off the rest of the video.

Conclusion

So there you have it, a quick and easy way to change the audio of your video without re-exporting your video at all!

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