Expanding My Music Collection

[Michigan Swamp Buck]

"Expanding My Music Collection" or "How to pirate online music undetected".

I've been wanting to expand on my music library in my entertainment computer system I call GERRWEES (Group Electronic Rackmounted Recording WiFi Enabled Entertainment System).

I have video and audio I've ripped from CDs and DVDs and can also do live recording. It has a small mixing board and with some creative use of audio adapters I can now make some decent quality audio from Youtube videos.

Basically I do a live audio recording of the video then edit it and export as any audio file. So instead of going to some questionable fly by night website to down load "free" MP3s, leaving an online footprint of copyright infringements, I can get almost any songs for free and go undetected.

We would do this back in the cassette tape era by recording music from our FM stereos. The computer makes it far easier with much higher quality.

Yes, I know this activity is technically illegal and is screwing musicians out of their royalties, but this is for personal use, not to make any money. Besides, it screws the crooked music industry more than the musicians who got raped by the record companies to begin with.

Sad excuse I know, but it's costly to purchase individual songs on Amazon prime and the selection on Youtube is really good.

[hounddoghowlie]

"Expanding My Music Collection" or "How to pirate online music undetected".

I've been wanting to expand on my music library in my entertainment computer system I call GERRWEES (Group Electronic Rackmounted Recording WiFi Enabled Entertainment System).

I have video and audio I've ripped from CDs and DVDs and can also do live recording. It has a small mixing board and with some creative use of audio adapters I can now make some high quality audio from Youtube videos.

Basically I do a live audio recording of the video then edit it and export as any audio file. So instead of going to some questionable fly by night website to down load "free" MP3s, leaving an online footprint of copyright infringements, I can get almost any songs for free and go undetected.

We would do this back in the cassette tape era by recording music from our FM stereos. The computer makes it far easier with much higher quality.

Yes, I know this activity is technically illegal and is screwing musicians out of their royalties, but this is for personal use not to make any money. Besides, it screws the crooked music industry more than the musicians who got raped by the record companies to begin with.

Sad excuse I know, but it's costly to purchase individual songs on Amazon prime and the selection on Youtube is really good.

I still do it like in the old days. I use the free audio recording software Audacity and Mostly stream off the Web Site Bad Rock Radio
No Commercial 24 hrs a day, at some point you'll hears songs and versions by original artist, covers that you haven't heard in years and version that weren't played on most FM radio stations, and tunes off albums that were never played on the radio and wonder why they weren't.
Audacity for a free app is loaded, and has more features that I've never used. I highly recommend it.

Bad Rock Radio is the shit, here is a list of the last songs played,
Recently Played:
Pink Floyd - Keep Talking
The Kids are Alright
Gov't Mule - Mr. Big
I've Seen All Good People
Stevie Ray Vaughn - Tightrope
the who - the who - The Who - Eminence Front
The Who - The Who - The Who - Summertime Blues
Primus - Amos Moses
Houses Of The Holy

Sometimes I'll open both up, and let them run for hours and then edit out the tunes i don't want.

Check them out you might like them.
Audacity

Bad Rock Home Page, not much to look at it's just simplicity.
Bad Rock Radio


Bad Rock Streaming page, sometimes you have to click the stop button and then click the play button.
Bad Rock Radio

[Ninurta]

I use  4k Video Downloader to download the videos from YT, from which the audio can them be stripped and adjusted with something like "Audacity" if one desires. I don't go the extra mile, though, because I just watch them on the computer, and download some for offline personal use.

Not sure why it's technically illegal - no one, neither artist nor recording company, is taking a hit any more than they do if I listen to a song on the radio, but there it is. And, as you mentioned, the artists are getting ass raped prison-gang style by the recording companies already, anyhow, so they lose nothing.

It's mainly just the recording companies that wanna tap that ass and get grouchy.

.

[hounddoghowlie]

I use  4k Video Downloader to download the videos from YT, from which the audio can them be stripped and adjusted with something like "Audacity" if one desires. I don't go the extra mile, though, because I just watch them on the computer, and download some for offline personal use.

Not sure why it's technically illegal - no one, neither artist nor recording company, is taking a hit any more than they do if I listen to a song on the radio, but there it is. And, as you mentioned, the artists are getting ass raped prison-gang style by the recording companies already, anyhow, so they lose nothing.

It's mainly just the recording companies that wanna tap that ass and get grouchy.

.

Not lawyer, but i fairly certain recording it's not illegal to record or even rip audio.

A To first address the legal aspect of your question, it’s considered copyright violation in the U.S. to copy DVDs and Blu-ray discs to a server or hard drive. (Oddly, the same restrictions don’t apply to audio CDs, which people can rip guilt-free.) To address the realistic aspect, plenty of people copy movie discs to computer hard drives, and there are loads of software options available on the web that will help you do just that.
Link: Is it Legal to Copy Blu-ray Discs to a Hard Drive?

Is It Legal to Download YouTube Videos to MP3s for ...


Downloading or "ripping" audio or video from YouTube for download is not illegal unless the content is copyrighted. Also, ripping any audio content from videos is a violation of YouTube's terms of service. Keep in mind, YouTube's terms of service are not the same as US copyright laws and violating them is not in itself, illegal, although not recommended.

Link: https://www.audio-digital.net/i-pages/is...legal.html

[Michigan Swamp Buck]

Yes, I use Audacity as well. It's great for multi-track recording the original material.

[EndtheMadnessNow]

I use  4k Video Downloader to download the videos from YT, from which the audio can them be stripped and adjusted with something like "Audacity" if one desires. I don't go the extra mile, though, because I just watch them on the computer, and download some for offline personal use.

Not sure why it's technically illegal - no one, neither artist nor recording company, is taking a hit any more than they do if I listen to a song on the radio, but there it is. And, as you mentioned, the artists are getting ass raped prison-gang style by the recording companies already, anyhow, so they lose nothing.

It's mainly just the recording companies that wanna tap that ass and get grouchy.

.

Ding, ding, same here. Been doing it this way for past 10 years. Remember the Napster days.  

Back when that nefarious org DCMA was cracking down on mp3 download's I'd get a Cease & Desist letter about once a week. When they started going after people I found alternate means. All personal, never made money from it nor shared my library.

[FlyingClayDisk]

...

... It has a small mixing board and with some creative use of audio adapters I can now make some high quality audio from Youtube videos.

...

I suspect you may already know this, but unfortunately, you can't really do that.  You can't put sound back into a recording, you can only manipulate the frequencies/sounds which are remaining / there to manipulate.  Compression technology has already removed upwards of 30% of the frequency response (in some cases even more than that) out of your starting point.  You can't put that back into what you hear because it has been removed from the recording medium (actually, it was never there to begin with as it was eliminated during the production and distribution stages).

Compression has all but destroyed the notion of "quality" audiophile grade music in the music industry.  And the hell of it is, most people don't even realize it, nor do they understand it.  This is like the boiling a frog scenario.  The quality of music recording, or should I say 'distribution' has gone incrementally and steadily downhill for the past 3-4 decades.  When people began to accept the crappy fidelity response of MP3 and other compression technology, this was the beginning of the end.  Now, that same compression technology is being used for a different / additional purpose...to hide sub-par musical talent.

On a side note...next time somebody asks you why the commercials on the television seem louder than the program you're watching, you can tell them to thank the same compression technology for that.  If you measure the sound pressure levels you will see they are actually lower on the commercials, so why do they seem louder?  Because much of the frequency response has been removed so you only hear what they want you to hear, and nothing else.  All the rest of the response has been 'clipped'.  When it comes to music, that's not "music"...it's deception!

Sorry, man.  I agree, it sucks!

[Michigan Swamp Buck]

FlyingClayDisk

...

... It has a small mixing board and with some creative use of audio adapters I can now make some high quality audio from Youtube videos.

...

FlyingClayDisk

I suspect you may already know this, but unfortunately, you can't really do that.  You can't put sound back into a recording, you can only manipulate the frequencies/sounds which are remaining / there to manipulate.  Compression technology has already removed upwards of 30% of the frequency response (in some cases even more than that) out of your starting point.  You can't put that back into what you hear because it has been removed from the recording medium (actually, it was never there to begin with as it was eliminated during the production and distribution stages).

Compression has all but destroyed the notion of "quality" audiophile grade music in the music industry.  And the hell of it is, most people don't even realize it, nor do they understand it.  This is like the boiling a frog scenario.  The quality of music recording, or should I say 'distribution' has gone incrementally and steadily downhill for the past 3-4 decades.  When people began to accept the crappy fidelity response of MP3 and other compression technology, this was the beginning of the end.  Now, that same compression technology is being used for a different / additional purpose...to hide sub-par musical talent.

On a side note...next time somebody asks you why the commercials on the television seem louder than the program you're watching, you can tell them to thank the same compression technology for that.  If you measure the sound pressure levels you will see they are actually lower on the commercials, so why do they seem louder?  Because much of the frequency response has been removed so you only hear what they want you to hear, and nothing else.  All the rest of the response has been 'clipped'.  When it comes to music, that's not "music"...it's deception!

Sorry, man.  I agree, it sucks!

I didn't mean that I was getting HD studio master quality recordings, just high quality compared to back in the cassette days so I changed the OP wording to "decent quality". I did give consideration to that though, at most I can adjust what I can but the system I use isn't that great either, so what I've produced isn't noticeably bad really.

I thought about how the compressed signal could be expanded or stretched to fill the spectrum, but that is beyond what audacity freeware is capable of doing. I've done much with it though. I was able to create a stereo effect out of a mono audio signal from an old VHS video of a live band performance. It convincingly separated the signal with consideration to what was on stage. There is much better software I'm sure that you could do a lot more with.

[kdog]

I usually just listen to this radio station  https://wfpk.org/ or ask the computer ( Alexa ) to play music from the music list. 

Check out some Keb Mo , David Byrne or anything Americana . https://americanamusic.org/what-american...may%20draw.

I had over a thousand cds then the ex sold it all.

[Michigan Swamp Buck]

I usually just listen to this radio station  https://wfpk.org/ or ask the computer ( Alexa ) to play music from the music list. 

Check out some Keb Mo , David Byrne or anything Americana . https://americanamusic.org/what-american...may%20draw.

I had over a thousand cds then the ex sold it all.

Funny you mention David Byrne, the last recording I was going to make before bed last night was Talking Heads. I was looking up 80s girl bands like Bangles, Go Gos, and Blondie when Talking Heads came up in the side bar.

With youtube, you have to at least know an artist or song name. It will pull up music types, but it's better to go in knowing what you want. I'm liking the live material and covers by other bands mostly.

[SnrRog]

Eh, I've got over 38000 mp3s, I just get them from newsgroups.
 They come in over 200mbps, and I save them directly to my music folder in Plex. Easy peasy..