MELANCHOLY404 TECHNOLOGY

Almost all Video Players on Android provide gesture controls to set volume and brightness as the video plays. It easy and handy to have this feature. Now, what if you get this feature in the official YouTube Android app? Maybe you’re too lazy to stretch out your fingers to the volume buttons or pull down the notification bar to increase brightness. Whatever the case may be, if you’re interested in getting this feature then read on.

There are many apps on Play Store that can give you gesture controls to perform different actions. But, that will take its affect system-wide. You need to have an application that can track a specific activity (as in our case a video playing in the YouTube app) and turn on the gesture control for that specific activity. That way the action performed will only affect the specific activity in the app and not system-wide. So, here I’d like to share with you an app that will do exactly that.

Volume and Brightness Gesture Controls in YouTube for Android

Step-1: Download and Install this app.
Step-2: Open the app and you’ll be asked to turn on the Accessibility Settings for the app.


Step-3: Turn on Accessibility for the app. This will enable the app to track when the YouTube video is playing on your Android phone.

Step-4: You’re now all set to use the gesture control in the YouTube app. Play a video on YouTube. Swiping up/down on the left will control the brightness and on the right will control the volume.

The Annoying Message

As you can see in the above screenshot, you get a full sized banner asking you to buy the full version. Yes, this comes up every time change the brightness and volume. It stays for around 2 seconds. But, it’s still annoying. The full version costs $2. If you really want to have this feature in YouTube app then go for it.

Settings

In the settings of the app, you can set the velocity of the swipe and enable the option to show brightness and volume levels in percentage.

Any Other Way?

The free version of the app will surely annoy you. But, the full version is worth the buy (it also contains settings for tap anywhere to pause/start and auto brightness). However, if you have any other way to do this in the YouTube app then do mention it down in the comments and help other readers.

A picture is worth a thousand words and a video is worth a thousand pictures and if you see recent trends, users have now started to share more videos than ever before. However, people still refrain from posting videos online and one of the major reasons is because of the crappy audio that’s captured from your phone’s microphone.
The audio can also be embarrassing sometimes when someone around you is not aware that you are filming. But still, the audio should not stop you from uploading your beautiful holiday video to the web. Just remove the audio from the video and mute it and later, add some soothing music in the background and it will be perfect.
So here’s the trick to mute a video using VLC and YouTube for free and without any limits.

Removing Sound using VLC

If it’s a personal computer and you can install VLC on it, it’s one of the best ways to remove audio from any video. To start, open the VLC Media player and click on Media and select the option of Convert/Save (Ctrl+R).

On the Open Media window that opens up, click on Add and select the video file that you would like to mute the audio from and click on the Convert/Save button.

When the convert window opens up, first, select the profile you would like to use to convert the video. Next, click on the option of Edit Selected Profile next to it and you will be taken to the page where you can edit the selected profile.

Any profile you choose will have an audio tab to configure the audio codec and bitrate that you would like to use. Here, just uncheck the audio option and save the settings.

Finally, select the output path again when you are on the Convert window and beginning the conversion process. The conversion will approximately take the same amount of time as the duration of the video and you will be able to see the process on the VLC seek bar.

After the conversion if done, just play the converted video and it will not have any sound like the original media. You can now re-edit it to include custom tracks or upload to social media without worrying.

Removing Audio using YouTube

This method must be taken as an alternative if you are not able to use VLC on your computer, as this process includes uploading the video to the web and then downloading it. It will not only take added time but also cost you some additional bandwidth. If you are ready, upload the video to your YouTube account and remember to mark it as private.

Keep the upload settings as default as it won’t matter much and wait for YouTube to process it completely.

Once the video is processed, open the YouTube video editor page and drag the video you uploaded to your library. When on video editor, navigate to the audio tab and use the volume slider to mute the video. If that’s all you want, give a name to the new video (project) and click on the button Create video.

Cool Tip: You can also add background music to these videos using the YouTube video editor.
The new video will be processed which might take a while and will be added to your video library along with all the uploads you have done. Now, all you need to do is, click on the down arrow next to the Edit button and select the Download option.
Watch the Video: If you’re more of a visual kinda person, then here’s our video explaining the above steps. If you like it, share it with your friends too!

Conclusion

So that was how you can use VLC and YouTube to remove audio from any given video. The reason I choose these two tools is because they are free to use without any limitation and works with most of the well-known media file format. If you have any tool in mind that can perform better, please do share it with us.

YouTube, the world’s largest online video portal has now launched the music streaming services for Android and iOS. However, like most of the services, it’s limited to the users who are in the US. I must say, it’s a big turn off when you pick up the phone to download and try an all new service, only to realize that your country is not in the allowed list.

But those kinds of restrictions has never stopped a Guiding Tech reader. In the past, we showed how you can download Spotify and try outside the US and the UK, and today, we are going to do the same for YouTube music. Root is not mandatory and everyone is invited to the party. All you need to do is follow the steps.

Not in the Mood to Read? Watch our Video Instead

Step 1: Download and Install the YouTube Music APK

Now, as the app will only show up on the Play Store if you are in the US, we had to sideload the app from third-party sources. Naturally, we chose APK mirror to download and sideload the YouTube Music APK.
 
If this is the first time you are sideloading any APK file, you will have to enable the Download from Unknown Source in settings.

After the app is installed, no point in launching it yet. You will be able to sign in, but only get the error that the service is not available in your country and to use YouTube instead. That takes us to the next step.
 

Step 2: Change Region to the US for YouTube Music

We will now have to fool the YouTube music app to think that you are browsing from the US and FlashVPN will help us out here. So, download and install FlashVPN Proxy service from the Play Store to continue.

After FlashVPN is installed, launch it and opt for the free version. The free version has no limits, but the app has ads. The premium version is known as RocketVPN and can be purchased for US $4.99. In the app, select United states as the server and then create a VPN connection.
  
Having done that, FlashVPN will ask you to grant it permission to allow VPN Connection and then wait for the connection to establish. Now go ahead and launch the YouTube Music App and wait for it to load. If everything went smoothly, you will see the YouTube Music Interface.

When you sign it to the app, you will also get a 14 days free trial of the YouTube Red that accentuates the YouTube Music experience. You will need to have FlashVPN running in the background all the while you are listening to YouTube music, but as it’s a free service, that shouldn’t be much of an issue.
 

Conclusion

So go ahead and enjoy the YouTube music experience on your Android.  I will be trying out the YouTube music app for a while before we come up with our review on it. But in the meantime, go ahead and enjoy the app.