Load Audio (Path)🎥🅥🅗🅢

Same idea as Load Audio (Upload), but instead of picking from a dropdown you point it at a filesystem path. Use it when your audio lives outside ComfyUI's input folder - on another drive, produced by an earlier step, or referenced by a script. It's the path-based audio loader in Kosinkadink's VideoHelperSuite, and it outputs Comfy's standard AUDIO type so it drops straight into a Video Combine or any audio node.

The reason to use a VHS audio loader over the built-in Load Audio is the extra control: this one gives you a start offset and a maximum duration, so you can grab exactly the slice you want rather than the whole file. If you don't need that, the native node is fine - but "path plus trim" is a combination only this node gives you.

How it works

It decodes the file at the given path into the AUDIO format, applying the seek offset and length limit at load time. Trimming up front keeps you from carrying a long track through the graph when you only need a few seconds of it.

The inputs and outputs that matter

The audio_file widget is the path (it defaults to input/, a hint to start there). This is a VHS_PATH field, so when you edit it you get filename completion - Tab picks the top suggestion, Ctrl+B walks up a directory. The two trim knobs:

• seek_seconds - offset from the start of the file, in seconds. Playback begins here.
• duration - cap on how much audio to load, in seconds. 0 loads to the end.

Outputs are audio (wire into Video Combine's audio input) and duration (the loaded length as a float).

How to install it

ComfyUI Manager: search ComfyUI-VideoHelperSuite, install, restart. Or:

cd ComfyUI/custom_nodes
git clone https://github.com/Kosinkadink/ComfyUI-VideoHelperSuite

then restart. No weights to download. Audio decoding uses ffmpeg via the imageio-ffmpeg dependency; keep a system ffmpeg on PATH for oddball formats.

Common issues & troubleshooting

The path doesn't resolve. On a cloud or shared instance, VHS_STRICT_PATHS may restrict loading to ComfyUI's own folders - in that case move the file under ComfyUI and use the upload version. Otherwise double-check the path; the completion popup (start typing, Tab) helps you avoid typos.

Format error on load. Install a real ffmpeg and put it on PATH; the bundled binary doesn't cover every codec.

Audio drifts against the video. Not this node's fault, usually - set Video Combine's frame_rate from a Video Info node's loaded_fps so trimmed/resampled frames stay in step with the sound.