For a long time I was able to extract MP3 audio from videos on YouTube using the XDM Add-On, but starting today all attempts to do so have resulted in silent 5-minute files.
Do you know a way of grabbing MP3 audio from videos on YouTube?
Yes Carl I do!! How do you think I compiled 1/3 to 1/2 of my playlist, especially all the OTR episodes! To be continued as I will be back in a bit.
The program I use is YouTube to MP3 downloader from this site www.dvdvideosoft.com
The free version is very slow to download but I have the pay version which was if I remember $29.95 one time and it's yours and a 3 minute song will take 10 seconds or less to download. A 1/2 hour OTR show will take a minute and a few seconds. To get all my 900 episodes of Suspense for example that was in one playlist I set it to download the whole playlist before I went to bed and in the morning it was done!
You can select the bitrate, audio quality, a few other formats can be selected but MP3 is compatible with everything including Zara. You can select where the file can go in the computer or directly to a SSD external drive whatever.
You simply right click on the video and paste the URL in the downloader window where it shows and click download and watch the bars indicating the progress. It automatically extracts the audio. When finished you can just clear it by selecting delete all.
Thank you Mark!
Interesting experience so far testing the MP3 from YouTube extractor suggested by Mark.
Just as he said the free version acts slowly, but downloads in an otherwise normal way. Thing is, when it was done, I cannot find the MP3 that was supposedly downloaded. Where did it go?
The free version only permits one download per day, so tomorrow I will do another test.
@carl-blare The download defaults to your "videos" in your computer and you will see them when you go to documents and see the other folders like music, videos, pictures etc. unless you change where to save them but videos is good as you can then put them anywhere you want. I have the premium version. In case that was different with the version you tried look in all the folders including downloads but should be in videos. An icon will be in the start menu *youtube to MP3 converter*. and when you want it click and the window comes up ready. You need to have that and youtube running at the same time.
As for the free version yes they make it so you have to get the pay version to have it practical to use. The easily affordable pay version is one time and will do like I said...a typical song 10 seconds and you can sit there and do 100s of downloads and there's no limit. Wow, didn't even know you were only allowed 1 song per day on the free version.
Way back when when I got this I just tried the download to a song and when I saw the painstakingly slow download speed I immediately upgraded to premium and the window came up with the special price...really not much. And I have it till now. I have it set at MP3 standard and audio is fine, but for the OTR I set at a higher audio quality setting to compensate for the not as good audio of some episodes.
Carl, here's the one I use. You can download 10 mp3s a day.
https://www.4kdownload.com/products/youtubetomp3-72.
You can set in settings where you want your files to download to.
Great, Johny!
All the way from RAG-FM in New Zealand.
@carl-blare I don't understand only 10 downloads a day? I can sit and do unlimited downloads. I can do 900 episodes of Suspense in one day and 500 more of another! And as many songs as I want, and each song takes seconds.
No restrictions! For $20!! one time fee and it's yours. The site I gave you shows right on the page a demo of how to use.
Why get something limited to only a few a day and less selections on audio quality? It would take you years to compile a good playlist for an automated station.
I have no doubt that Mark's recommendation is a very excellent solution to grabbing MP3s from YouTube videos, but I am also welcoming to learn of all the solutions brought to light by members of the forum.
Yet another resource has been submitted by a contact I spoke to, and I have been experimenting with it... ytmp3.plus... As far as I can tell it places no limit on the number of downloads, is free, but delivers only in AAC formatted MP3s unable to play in Zara, which I convert to OGG using Audacity with the optional free FFmpeg utility installed.
In my case I am not building a large playlist from YouTube material, but am mostly increasing my knowledge of classical music that I have previously not encountered. Yesterday I compiled all 9 of Heitor Villa Lobos' Bachianas Brasileiris and all 12 of his Choros compositions. I do run these in my playlist perhaps one piece per day on a noncommercial fair use basis, as my station is mainly a talk station and the talk programs usually do not come from YouTube.
Saving $20 is my preference, as running KDX already costs more than is comfortable and generates zero revenue. But if these free choices failed, I would come up with the money.
i only use youtube as a last resort for downloading music.
that being said, i do occasionally use an older chrome addon that google removed from the chrome store when tbey purchased youtube. i will post the name and publisher tonight. you still should be able to find it, even with the wayback machine.
it's free, unlimited downloads and fast. it has an mp3 encoder that sometimes works, but i use media human audio converter to convert mp4 to mp3.
Something else to look out for...
In trying several free download programs found through a search, some of them hitched up with unwanted links including a porno site, game sites, and a constant offer to let the Opera Browser take over. Unwanted junk that I think defines 'malware'.
Sorry it took so long to post this.
The youtube downloader I use is this.
It's older, and is no longer in the chrome store. It also requires the use of a firefox emulator but installation of that is automatic.
The video downloader is fast, free, and allows unlimited downloads.
The mp3 converter is beta, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But you can always download the youtube video and convert the mp4 to mp3 in such tools as Media Human Audio Converter (which is what I do).
As I stated previously, youtube is the choice of last resort to download music. You're going through an intermediary and sometimes the results are less than stellar.
If possible, I go to the source for music, i.e., CD. Libraries still have plenty. For OTR, I use the OTRR archive, which has the latest and greatest versions available. You won't find any better sounding audio.
I have to mention archive.org, particularly for public domain material.
If all else fails, before I go to youtube, I look on Usenet. You're still relying on another's encode, but generally I find the results reasonable. And you'll find plenty of stuff that can't be found on youtube, particularly older jazz, blues and acoustic (pre 1925) music.