i tried to isolate vocals from this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Fwinlpv1J0&ab_channel=ScarletLolita and i have downloaded this song with youtube downloader which downloads it in mp4 format (but when i imported it into Audacity all i heard was squiggles) and then after i downloaded the song i tried isolating the vocals in Audacity but it told me i had to convert it to wav or aiff which i dont know how to do but then i figured out that i needed to download lame and ffmpg which i did but for some reason its still just making the squiggling noises no other noise just squiggles so how do make it sound like the original song to then isoalte the vocals which i originally intended to do
While downloading the original sound file is the best way, that’s not always possible with all services. The alternative is to record the show in real time.
http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/tutorial_recording_audio_playing_on_the_computer.html
Koz
Videos downloaded from Youtube quite often contain “illegal” characters in the file name.
Audacity should be able to import the MP4 if you have a compatible version of FFmpeg installed (as per the instructions here: Audacity Manual) but you may need to rename the file first so as to ensure there are no weird (and possibly “invisible”) characters in the file name.
Isolating vocals from a mix is a difficult, and often “impossible” task. Audacity does not ship with the necessary tools, but there are some optional plugins that may be able to help. See this page of the manual: Audacity Manual
The original file itself is already heavily distorted, most apparent in the louder sections.
Here’s a sample with isolated vocals gradually moving to music only:
It is recorded with Wasapi and treated with the 2D Stereo Toolkit.
Perhaps, there’s another version available without clipping?