Although the website is completely in German it should not be a problem for non-German speakers to navigate the website. The process is easy and clear. A search term is entered in the only search box on the main page of MP3 Getter. Youtube is then queried and the results are shown on the next page. Ten results are shown with preview images and names and a click on any of them loads the video in the foreground.

The video starts playing automatically and a click on the button MP3 downloaden starts the process to split the audio from the video. It takes a while and a save file dialog box is presented once the mp3 file has been created.

MP3 Getter has the advantage over similar web services in two key areas. It provides a Youtube search which means that the user does not have to copy and paste the url of the video that he wants the audio from. The second is that the video is actually playing while the ripping is processed.

I’m using the excellent cover of Lil Red Riding Hood by The Brooke to explain how this is done. If you do not want to download the video you can use the online converter at Vixy.net to rip the music from the file. Just copy the url of the Youtube movie and paste it into the url field of the Vixy website. Now select MP3 (audio only) from the pulldown menu and click Start.

Ripping the music from the url takes much longer than using a program that is installed on your computer. The video or videos have to be on your hard drive as well. You can use a program like FLV Extract to extract the audio from flv files, the files that all Youtube videos are saved in.

You can use a Firefox extension like Download Helper for instance to download the videos in first place. When you start FLV Extract uncheck Video and Timecodes so that only the Audio option is enabled. Now drag and drop files whose music you want to have into the program window. It takes only a few seconds to rip the music from the video.

Finding music videos on Youtube should not be a problem. Either search for the song, album or artist and you should find plenty of music videos that you can download or rip online. Pretty effective way to increase the music collection.