FFmpeg

Audio Commands

Extract, convert, and process audio with FFmpeg. From extracting audio tracks to normalizing volume, changing sample rates, and mixing channels — handle any audio task from the command line.

8 commands

Pro Tips

Extract audio without re-encoding: 'ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -vn -c:a copy audio.aac' preserves original quality.

Normalize audio loudness with '-af loudnorm' for consistent volume across multiple files.

Convert to MP3 with 'ffmpeg -i input.wav -codec:a libmp3lame -qscale:a 2 output.mp3' for high-quality VBR.

Common Mistakes

MP3 encoding is lossy — converting from one lossy format to another compounds quality loss. Keep originals.

Sample rate conversion can introduce artifacts. Only resample when necessary for target format requirements.

Commands

Change audio bitrate

$ ffmpeg -i input.mp3 -b:a 192k output.mp3

Re-encode audio with specific bitrate

Convert to mono

$ ffmpeg -i input.mp3 -ac 1 output.mp3

Convert stereo audio to mono

Change audio codec

$ ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v copy -c:a aac output.mp4

Re-encode audio with different codec

Change sample rate

$ ffmpeg -i input.mp3 -ar 44100 output.mp3

Change audio sample rate

Adjust volume

$ ffmpeg -i input.mp3 -af "volume=1.5" output.mp3

Increase or decrease audio volume

Merge audio and video

$ ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -i audio.mp3 -c:v copy -c:a aac output.mp4

Combine separate audio and video files

Normalize audio

$ ffmpeg -i input.mp3 -af loudnorm output.mp3

Normalize audio levels

Replace audio track

$ ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -i newaudio.mp3 -c:v copy -map 0:v:0 -map 1:a:0 output.mp4

Replace video's audio with new audio