Recording from Youtube

[Thalis]

Not sure if this question has been asked before. I am planning to record music from Youtube... especially obscure music that I cannot find in Spotify or Tidal. Will be using Audacity set to record from the Fiio E10k Loopback. The Windows output is set to 100% and 24/44.1 and will be turning off Peace/EAPO. Windows CAudioLimiter has also been disabled.

Question is... do i convert the Audacity project to FLAC or some lossy codec? Youtube audio is already lossy... so if i convert the recorded project to a lossy codec would i be making it even more lossier (lets say I covert to the max 320)?

 

[Prana Ferox]

Why are you doing this instead of just using jDownloader?

 

[JSmith]

This may be much easier;

YouTube to MP3 - Best youtube to mp3 music converter.

YouTube to MP3 is a fast free online tool to download and convert youtube videos to 320kbps mp3 music.

yt2mp3.info

Limitation: Limits are always needed for good service so Our converter does not convert videos length longer than 1 hour (3600 sec). The advantage of this limitation is that our tool is not overloaded, due to which it takes only 20-30 seconds to convert 5 minutes of video.

Converted Mp3 Quality: We never compromise with quality even at the slightest. That's why YouTube, which gives us the highest quality audio, we convert it to MP3 without tampering with quality.

Tool Upgraded: Due to the high demand of converter users, our team decided to further upgrade our converter tool to include multiple variants of quality such as 32kbps, 64kbps, 128kbps, 192kbps, 256kbps and 320kbps, Fulfilling that you can use that service now.

Quality Note: We have seen other converter sites that they provide 320kbps Mp3 files but YouTube does not provide 320kbps audio. If you forcefully convert 128kbps audio file to 320kbps then its file size will increase and not the audio quality. This line was for a general knowledge, then as you wish.

JSmith

 

[DSJR]

I use this one - https://www.dvdvideosoft.com/en12?app=dlmp3&src=topbarlnk

I paid a modest fee and can now convert all music downloads to wav. I find it so useful for rare and now unavailable 12" mixes often delivered by the record company (so not vinyl rips). The pre-upload quality often seems excellent so the Youtube codecs don't appear to mangle the tracks further.

 

[Thalis]

Why are you doing this instead of just using jDownloader?

I have never used any downloading software and i am more familiar with Audacity... have always used it to record stuff.

 

[Thalis]

This may be much easier;

YouTube to MP3 - Best youtube to mp3 music converter.

YouTube to MP3 is a fast free online tool to download and convert youtube videos to 320kbps mp3 music.

yt2mp3.info

JSmith

so this would preserve the sample rate of the music from the video?

 

[Thalis]

Thanks guys for the replied but I guess my only concern is would lossy be more lossy if I convert to say AAC after recording. And that it retains gapless playback.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

would lossy be more lossy if I convert to say AAC after recording. And that it retains gapless playback

Always. There's a lot of research proving that lossy encoding of a lossy source makes matters worse, in all sorts of unpleasant ways.

 

[Thalis]

Always. There's a lot of research proving that lossy encoding of a lossy source makes matters worse, in all sorts of unpleasant ways.

Well... if this is the case then FLAC it is. Thank you.

 

[USER]

If you are looking to properly obtain uncopyrighted or public sounds from Youtube the way to do that is through a executable script such as yt-dlp. Website-based downloaders should be completely avoided if you are looking for good sound quality. This is a faster and far easier method than recording audio through loopback and guarantees you the optimal codec stream and thus best sound quality if it is chosen. All Youtube sounds are re-encoded to the opus format with a variable bitrate in the low 100s and at 48k, but it is quite good for a lossy codec, and so lossy re-encodes (other formats) should be avoided at all cost and recording at 24-bit is pointless and a waste of resources. Such a script allows you to obtain the opus format sound file. You can certainly save it as a flac file for player compatibility or to make adjustments and corrections.

yt-dlp/ at master · yt-dlp/yt-dlp

A feature-rich command-line audio/video downloader - yt-dlp/yt-dlp

github.com

On Windows you have to use this through the command prompt. The "-F" command allows you to see all the components and codec options. "-f 251" is usually the highest bitrate and thus highest quality opus file. Please read the instructions and documentation carefully as this is all the help I will provide given the nature of the topic.

 

[MRC01]

In Linux Pulseaudio you can do a similar thing at the command line. Create a named audio stream, clone it off the primary stream, and have it write it to disc as it streams. When it's done you can load the audio data file into Audacity using "import - raw data", then you can apply whatever processing you want (or none), and write it in any format you want.

If anyone wants details I'll post my command line script after I get home today.

 

[staticV3]

If you want to download audio from YouTube in the best possible quality, just use yt-dlp and choose format 251 in the CLI.

Both installing and using it is honestly really simple. Despite the lack of GUI.
In return you get peace of mind that no additional conversion takes place in the process.
And you get smaller files as you're downloading the raw OPUS file from YouTube's servers. No need to reformat to FLAC.

 

[Thalis]

thanks @MRC01 and @staticV3 ... will definitely try this out and I am running Windows 7.

 

[Thalis]

In Linux Pulseaudio you can do a similar thing at the command line. Create a named audio stream, clone it off the primary stream, and have it write it to disc as it streams. When it's done you can load the audio data file into Audacity using "import - raw data", then you can apply whatever processing you want (or none), and write it in any format you want.

If anyone wants details I'll post my command line script after I get home today.

pity I do not use Linux anymore... could be fun to try out.

 

[tinkerton]

I messed around with yt-dlp a lot and it's really great. I usually grab the m4a or opus file.

I also made this website using yt-dlp to download the m4a audio and just rename the extension to mp4 for me.

 

[Mean & Green]

The way I do it may be considered archaic, but I use an old CD recorder. It’s a fully digital process and has to be done in real time, but it works brilliantly. I just rip the recorded disc to my computer afterwards. Recording onto a CD-RW means I can erase the disc and reuse.