Best Software/Browser Extension(s) For Downloading Tracks Off Of Soundcloud? (UPDATED 10/01/21)

[Kjennings92]

Title pretty much states it on this 1 in a nutshell: I'm wanting to hear your suggestions for the best software or browser extensions I can use specifically for downloading tracks off of Soundcloud. I'm hoping that whatever I end up using, there won't be any distortion to the tracks that I download. (Which is sort of important here.)

 

Well, if any of you need more details or wish to ask me anything additional, feel free to do so & I'll reply back. 

Thanks in advance!

[Nayr438]

Downloadable Songs will have a option to download from the site itself.

If your goal is to download songs that have not been marked as downloadable by the creator, then you are in violation of SoundCloud's ToS and are committing piracy.  Considering your asking, I am going to assume this is what your trying to do.

 

https://help.soundcloud.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003448787-Downloading-tracks

[Kjennings92]

1 hour ago, Nayr438 said:

Downloadable Songs will have a option to download from the site itself.

If your goal is to download songs that have not been marked as downloadable by the creator, then you are in violation of SoundCloud's ToS and are committing piracy.  Considering your asking, I am going to assume this is what your trying to do.

 

https://help.soundcloud.com/hc/en-us/articles/115003448787-Downloading-tracks

I'm aware that some tracks can be downloaded, but just to clarify- I will NOT be committing piracy. I officially got permission from each artist themselves to use the tracks/videos I want for the project I'm working on.[(Should have mentioned this in the description, but I forgot. Anyway, now you know.] 

[GDRRiley]

22 minutes ago, Kjennings92 said:

I'm aware that some tracks can be downloaded, but just to clarify- I will NOT be committing piracy. I officially got permission from each artist themselves to use the tracks/videos I want for the project I'm working on.[(Should have mentioned this in the description, but I forgot. Anyway, now you know.] 

then have them send you it directly.

[Kjennings92]

30 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

then have them send you it directly.

I could do that, but I'll consider it 1 of my last steps if you know what I mean...

[kirashi]

4 hours ago, Kjennings92 said:

I could do that, but I'll consider it 1 of my last steps if you know what I mean...

It's your only legal step. Just because an artist gives you permission to use their work does not mean you can violate SoundCloud's Terms of Service to acquire the audio files. Get the artists to send them to you in a legal manner.

[Nayr438]

11 hours ago, Kjennings92 said:

I officially got permission from each artist themselves to use the tracks/videos I want for the project I'm working on.

If you got permission from the artist, then they should have sent you the original file. In any instance where I have obtained permission to use something, it was always sent to me in it's original unaltered release format, usually attached with a notice stating permission was granted, usually through email pointing back to a verifiable source. Also if you plan to use it in a public project, you are going to need that notice as well that can be traced back to its origin.

 

Even if you have permission, your still violating SoundClouds ToS and committing piracy.

You only obtained permission to use the audio source in your project, you did not gain permission from SoundCloud to forcefully rip it from there platform.

[LogicalDrm]

On 9/16/2021 at 3:33 AM, Kjennings92 said:

I could do that, but I'll consider it 1 of my last steps if you know what I mean...

It should be your first step. All the benefits, full bitrate file, from the creator you have gain permission from and without making things shadier than they need to be. As you are currently asking something to scrape audio off copyright protected site creators value as safe spot to share their work (something YT doesn't offer anymore).

[Kjennings92]

Well, this is definitely an interesting piece of the video project journey.

 

I decided to keep things simple by just having all MP3 files & then adding the artwork once I’m ready to when I go to edit. So I managed to find the tracks I want on Soundcloud, & I used https://soundcloudmp3.org to download the tracks, but I noticed that 1 of them does not sound as high quality as the version that is on Spotify. (Kind of a big difference in quality even though it's the same song essentially.) I honestly don’t know if this site that I used had any noticeable effect on the quality or not. But please, if there’s a better way of downloading the tracks I want with no loss in quality, do let me know! 

 

As always, don’t forget to ask me anything if you have questions or just need more details. I’ll be sure to answer back to the best of my knowledge. Thanks in advance! :) 

[Alex Atkin UK]

13 minutes ago, Kjennings92 said:

Well, this is definitely an interesting piece of the video project journey.

 

I decided to keep things simple by just having all MP3 files & then adding the artwork once I’m ready to when I go to edit. So I managed to find the tracks I want on Soundcloud, & I used https://soundcloudmp3.org to download the tracks, but I noticed that 1 of them does not sound as high quality as the version that is on Spotify. (Kind of a big difference in quality even though it's the same song essentially.) I honestly don’t know if this site that I used had any noticeable effect on the quality or not. But please, if there’s a better way of downloading the tracks I want with no loss in quality, do let me know! 

 

As always, don’t forget to ask me anything if you have questions or just need more details. I’ll be sure to answer back to the best of my knowledge. Thanks in advance! 

AFAIK Soundcloud is only available in MP3 so will always be lower quality than Spotify.

[Kjennings92]

1 minute ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

AFAIK Soundcloud is only available in MP3 so will always be lower quality than Spotify.

Yeah, but that's sort of beside the point.  I was asking if there's any better way(s) of getting an MP3 track that sounds as good as what it would on Spotify.

[BobVonBob]

If the artist you're listening to allows it you might be able to download the audio with the "Download file" button. While most artists I've seen don't enable this, you'll get the original file they uploaded to SoundCloud, so it will be the highest quality possible.

 

 

If that's not available there's no way to get better quality out of SoundCloud. You'll need to find another way to get the music.

[Kjennings92]

2 minutes ago, BobVonBob said:

If the artist you're listening to allows it you might be able to download the audio with the "Download file" button. While most artists I've seen don't enable this, you'll get the original file they uploaded to SoundCloud, so it will be the highest quality possible.

 

 

If that's not available there's no way to get better quality out of SoundCloud. You'll need to find another way to get the music.

I understand completely. But to confirm- I DO have permission from the artist to use any of his tracks. BUT the artist himself doesn't have an official account with Soundcloud & the results I did find for the track I'm after clearly are NOT the same quality as you would find on Spotify. Hence why I'm asking. 

[BobVonBob]

Just now, Kjennings92 said:

I understand completely. But to confirm- I DO have permission from the artist to use any of his tracks. BUT the artist himself doesn't have an official account with Soundcloud & the results I did find for the track I'm after clearly are NOT the same quality as you would find on Spotify. Hence why I'm asking. 

"Allows it" as in changing the setting to allow downloads when uploading to SoundCloud, not in the sense of you having permission to use the tracks. In that case unless listening to the track on SoundCloud itself sounds better than what you downloaded you won't get anything better out of SoundCloud.

[Kjennings92]

2 minutes ago, BobVonBob said:

"Allows it" as in changing the setting to allow downloads when uploading to SoundCloud, not in the sense of you having permission to use the tracks. In that case unless listening to the track on SoundCloud itself sounds better than what you downloaded you won't get anything better out of SoundCloud.

I know. (Not sure what you meant in the 1st part of your response there.) But I'm just asking to see if I have any more options other than Soundcloud. 

[AbydosOne]

48 minutes ago, Kjennings92 said:

But please, if there’s a better way of downloading the tracks I want with no loss in quality, do let me know! 

Step 1: download youtube-dl

Step 2:

youtube-dl -f best <url>

Step 3: ???
Step 4: Pir...ofit!

[Kjennings92]

1 minute ago, AbydosOne said:

Step 1: download youtube-dl

Step 2:

youtube-dl -f best <url>

Step 3: ???
Step 4: Pir...ofit!

OK, I steps 1 & 2 are pretty clear on this, but is up with the other 2 steps?  Also, will the youtube-dl method allow me to download the tracks as MP3 or will I have to convert them later on?

[AbydosOne]

Just now, Kjennings92 said:

OK, I steps 1 & 2 are pretty clear on this, but is up with the other 2 steps?  Also, will the youtube-dl method allow me to download the tracks as MP3 or will I have to convert them later on?

I'm emulating the meme format (only steps 1 and 2 are necessary).

 

I believe it will pull mp3.

 

You can do...

youtube-dl -F <url>

...to see all available formats for a URL (note capital F vs lower f) if there's a problem, then specify the desired format code in place of "best" in the first command I gave.

[Kjennings92]

Just now, AbydosOne said:

I'm emulating the meme format (only steps 1 and 2 are necessary).

 

I believe it will pull mp3.

 

You can do...

youtube-dl -F <url>

...to see all available formats for a URL (note capital F vs lower f) if there's a problem, then specify the desired format code in place of "best" in the first command I gave.

OK. Didn't know you were joking a little about the "other steps", I see what you did there.   But I guess the youtube-dl method is command-line based or something. Man, I sure hope this is easy assuming it might work out better...

[AbydosOne]

Just now, Kjennings92 said:

OK. Didn't know you were joking a little about the "other steps", I see what you did there.   But I guess the youtube-dl method is command-line based or something. Man, I sure hope this is easy assuming it might work out better...

It's about as simple as command line programs can come.

 

Pro tip: shift+right click in the folder the .exe is in (with nothing selected), choose "Open Command Window Here" (sometimes it's PowerShell, just type "cmd" into PS and keep following instructions), type/paste youtube-dl command in and press enter. Resulting file will show up in same folder, and youtube-dl usually will name it something reasonable.

[Kjennings92]

1 minute ago, AbydosOne said:

It's about as simple as command line programs can come.

 

Pro tip: shift+right click in the folder the .exe is in (with nothing selected), choose "Open Command Window Here" (sometimes it's PowerShell, just type "cmd" into PS and keep following instructions), type/paste youtube-dl command in and press enter. Resulting file will show up in same folder, and youtube-dl usually will name it something reasonable.

Got it. So it can be run either from a Command Prompt or via Powershell from what I understand, right? I do hope the site does have some steps/basic direction in case I might need to look it over.

[AbydosOne]

Just now, Kjennings92 said:

Got it. So it can be run either from a Command Prompt or via Powershell from what I understand, right? I do hope the site does have some steps/basic direction in case I might need to look it over.

I open Command Prompt in PS (I don't think it works straight in PS). Type "cmd" in and it will launch inside PS (it's a little janky, I know).

 

There are a lot of youtube-dl walkthroughs if you Google them. It's a really powerful little program, but most of the basics are pretty simple.

 

Sidenote: to actually download YT videos, you'll need to install ff-mpeg (manually, unfortunately) and update your PATH config (again, there are instructions on the Google for that step... I don't think it will be necessary for just SoundCloud though).

[Kjennings92]

1 minute ago, AbydosOne said:

I open Command Prompt in PS (I don't think it works straight in PS). Type "cmd" in and it will launch inside PS (it's a little janky, I know).

 

There are a lot of youtube-dl walkthroughs if you Google them. It's a really powerful little program, but most of the basics are pretty simple.

 

Sidenote: to actually download YT videos, you'll need to install ff-mpeg (manually, unfortunately) and update your PATH config (again, there are instructions on the Google for that step... I don't think it will be necessary for just SoundCloud though).

Well, seems like that makes sense. BTW, are there official websites for both ff-mpeg & youtube-dl or are the links on like Github or something? Yeah, might seem like this will be a little janky, but through searches online, watching tutorials, etc, I think this might work. Just really hoping it's not too complicated.

[Avocado Diaboli]

 

What is it with you wanting to download songs from Soundcloud (breaking their terms of service) that you apparently have permission to use from the artist, but somehow are unable to procure from said artist while also trying to jump through the most convoluted hoops in order to get them in any other fashion than just asking for the original files?

[LogicalDrm]

*** Threads merged ***

 

If you need to update this effort, keep it in one thread.

 

To others, as OP claims to have permission, this is within lines of the current ruling. My personal thoughts can be found from earlier post.