YouTube's videos attract plenty of eyeballs, but your ears likely get plenty of enjoyment out of its contents, too. And if you'd like to turn those videos into audio files and save them, MP3 Rocket (free) makes it about as easy as it could be.
MP3 Rocket bills itself as an "MP3 video converter"—and it does, indeed, convert videos to MP3 files, either from YouTube or from your own video files. It lets you search YouTube for certain songs or videos (you can search by artist name, song name, or keywords), and proved quite capable at delivering accurate results very quickly. Results are presented in a new tab, which shows the name of the file, source, file type, and popularity rating, and includes options for streaming the audio to check it or downloading it as an MP3. If you choose to download the file, you can select the location and opt to add it to your iTunes library.
MP3 Rocket says that it downloads songs in "high quality mode with a bitrate of at least 256 kbs." To my ears, all of the downloads were on a par, with CDs I had burned to my iTunes library. MP3 Rocket Pro, a $30 version, offers downloads at a higher bitrate of 320 kbs and promises faster downloads—though the free version took just a few minutes to get the job done.
MP3 Rocket includes plenty of additional features, beyond simple file conversion. It includes its own media player, so you can listen to the files you've downloaded. And it offers video conversion tools, too. You can locate a file on your computer and convert it to a different video format for viewing on a different device or to an audio file for listening. In addition, MP3 Rocket includes a "Watch TV" feature that lets you stream YouTube videos from within the application, an Internet radio, and access to some games.
FlicFlac is a tiny desktop tool for Windows. The app comes in a ZIP archive that includes the program’s EXE file. This file does not require any installation and will run even on systems where you do not have installation privileges.
Features:
+ A user-friendly desktop app.
+ Compatible with Windows computers.
+ Lets you convert audio file formats.
+ Supports FLAC, WAV, MP3, OGG, and APE output formats.
+ Lets you control audio bit rate.