I hear people ask about this from time to time, and I apparently stumbled across a site that will do it.
WARNING: Play with it at your own risk. I know jack squat about computer stuff and have never downloaded a song or even burned a CD, so don’t blame me if this turns out to be something unhelpful or just plain evil.
It LOOKS like a useful tool, though. Cheers!
If you have RealPlayer on your computer it has a download(er) function that allows you to download YT videos and once they’re downloaded you can convert them to mp3. I’ve done it a few times and it’s good quality. However recently the software seems to be having issues and is inconsistent (one day it works, the next - no dice). I think it’s probably the powers that be who own/put up the vids who are trying to prevent people from downloading vids (and then converting them to mp3) causing the “mayhem”.
I’ve used those Youtube - mp3 sites frequently. Sometimes it’s the only way to get extraordinarily obscure stuff. I’ve never gotten a virus from one.
I’ve used those Youtube - mp3 sites frequently. Sometimes it’s the only way to get extraordinarily obscure stuff. I’ve never gotten a virus from one.
Ditto.
Recently pulled out the rise against version of mother, for my wife… bleck it was god awful but she loves that guy’s voice!!
Late,
grmpysmrf
Audacity will record anything you can play at your headphone jack…so while it doesn’t actually download the file, per se…it’s guaranteed virus free.
I often just find something I like on YouTube…hit the record button on Audacity and then the play button on YouTube and voila…instant MP3, or just about any other type of audio file. You can edit them, compress them, top and tail them, EQ them as well.
granted, some really obscure stuff can be found only on youtube. beware though that audio probably goes through several quality degrading transcodes from one lossy format to another (depends on how video was made, etc).
granted, some really obscure stuff can be found only on youtube. beware though that audio probably goes through several quality degrading transcodes from one lossy format to another (depends on how video was made, etc).
Yeah, the audio quality on youtube videos is shit to begin with. I’ve only ever ripped youtube audio for really obscure live stuff.
I can’t stand listening to something that sounds like it was recorded under water in a bathtub.
Granted. I always keep on the lookout for higher quality versions of the weird songs I can only find on Youtube. But sometimes as a song collector you have to take what you can get.
granted, some really obscure stuff can be found only on youtube. beware though that audio probably goes through several quality degrading transcodes from one lossy format to another (depends on how video was made, etc).
I hate that. The sound quality just dies on youtube quite often. I jack up the bit rate to 256khps when possible.
I am so glad I don’t have the bionic ears that many of you have because I’m sure I’d be put off from music forever. I don’t hear the “bad sound quality” in mp3’s or you tube or whatever. flac and mp3 sound exactly the same to me.
Late,
grmpysmrf
I am so glad I don’t have the bionic ears that many of you have because I’m sure I’d be put off from music forever. I don’t hear the “bad sound quality” in mp3’s or you tube or whatever. flac and mp3 sound exactly the same to me.
Late,
grmpysmrf
I don’t either.
At home I listen to YouTube on my headphones all the time as if it’s my own stereo. Sometimes there are crappy uploads and they occasionally get tweaked a bit (slow, fast, crackly, etc.) but by and large it all sounds fine to me. Maybe some of it is I’m numbed to it as I grew up always listening to music by piss poor bands that recorded their albums on piss poor equipment in a piss poor studio (or garage) . . . and I listened it on my piss poor crappy ass stereo equipment.
I would never rip an album from YouTube to MP3 or anything, but some of the live stuff I would consider. Also, if I was into making songs I might use it to pull samples from.
nobody has perfect hearing. mp3 nowadays are usually 224+ kbps and up (usually its V0 VBR preset), which averages on 256kbps, and very very veeeeeeeery few people can tell those apart in blind tests.
however its easy to spot a lower quality mp3 (128-192kbps) easily - the high frequencies are “washed out”, very noticeable on cymbal crashes. especially if it’s the file from the “old days”.
needless to say that since the days of shit internet (slow speeds), tiny hard drives (by today’s standards) and days of napster, mp3 encoding also improved alot.
sometimes users upload full studio albums to youtube, i’m checking them out as well as previews or something, sometimes they sound good, however, alot of such uploads (and alot of separate track ones) sound as bad as the 128kbps mp3 from the “napster” days - if the uploader has a kinda crappy mp3 source, and uploads it to youtube, it gets mutilated even more by youtube’s compressor.
also older youtube uploads, that don’t have much quality choices, tend to have worse audio as well (and in mono only sometimes, even though original source song was stereo), cuz i bet that youtube’s compression algorithms are improving as well.
holy christ did someone really just mention Realplayer? bloatware ahoy! don’t forget to stream the Youtube feed through Netscape my man
Also…you can’t make something sound better by jacking up the sample rate. All you’ll do is induce aliasing and that sounds even worse. Upconverting is a myth. If it was recorded at 44k, upping the rate to 256k will do nothing.
There’s an old saying in recording studios, TV studios, anywhere there’s audio or video recording happening…
“Garbage in = Garbage out”
^ Yep. Nothing I hate more than downloading a file and despite it being in 320 it sounds like 60. All because some asshole thought converting up would improve the sound quality.
You can use Firefox add-ons to download audio and video from pretty much anywhere on the net. One click. Someone also provided the soundcloud download option as well.