5 ms·

Download any SoundCloud song

66 points by gmaster1440 15y ago

ngokevin 15y ago
Some others and I wrote a CLI for this: github.com:ngokevin/soundcloud-dl And integrated into youtube-dl. So youtube-dl master supports Soundcloud.
- bravura 15y ago
  I have the latest youtube-dl, but it doesn't seem to work: $ youtube-dl 'http://soundcloud.com/platform/red-stripe-make-sessions-001/s-cnhHf' [soundcloud] platform/red-stripe-make-sessions-001: Downloading webpage ERROR: unable to download video webpage: HTTP Error 404: Not Found Also, soundcloud-dl has an issue with that URL.
JonnieCache 15y ago
FYI you can get the streaming url from their public API, you don't have to muck around with string interpolation. They know it's easy to get so they just put it right there in the API for you to use. Also if you used the api you could have your script preferentially download the original file if the artist made it available. http://developers.soundcloud.com/docs/api/tracks http://developers.soundcloud.com/docs/api/tracks Ultimately though the stream is a 128 kbyte/s mp3, probably transcoded, and as such you should all feel slightly ashamed of yourselves :)
- jlogsdon 15y ago
  And their encoding is generally pretty bad, unless you the master you upload is already 128 kbyte/s. Even wavs are affected :( http://www.reddit.com/r/edmproduction/comments/qhrcw/soundclouds_file_compression_is_ruining_one_of_my/ http://www.reddit.com/r/edmproduction/comments/qhrcw/soundcl...
- dustingetz 15y ago
  > They know it's easy to get so they just put it right there in the API for you to use. I'd love to see TOS confirming this
- cyborg 15y ago
  Also should be noted that a subset of songs have a download url
zmitri 15y ago
It's also quite easy to spot the url using firebug or chrome's developer tools and the "network" tab. Most sites (tumblr, turntable.fm, etc) use flash to stream the music, and require a call to a url which then creates a public s3 link which is fed to the flash player via js api. tumblr also appends a quaint little parameter called "plead" to the end of their music urls. ?plead=please-dont-download-this-or-our-lawyers-wont-let-us-host-audio
moe 15y ago
That's nice, but much more importantly, here's the script to hide these awful track-comments by default: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/98339 http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/98339 Soundcloud is actually a fun site when the browser is not constantly bogged down and the screen not constantly flashing with 200 popups.
- phwd 15y ago
  Does it work for Chrome (using 17.0.963.65 Mac)? Using It seems to just break the individual song page and does not affect songs within the /dashboard. 1-2 of the reviews seem to share my experience. I have it queued up as answer to a question a user had here http://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/20868/hide-comments-by-default-on-soundcloud http://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/20868/hide-commen...
  - moe 15y ago
    It works for me on Chrome/Mac, but now that you say it, perhaps I found a different one when I quickly re-googled for this comment - sorry for that. When in doubt try google with "soundcloud hide comment script", I think there are 2 or 3 around, one of them definitely works.
kmf 15y ago
turned into a Safari extz: https://github.com/imkmf/soundcloud-download https://github.com/imkmf/soundcloud-download
viana007 15y ago
In many cases to download files from sites like this, I recommend Jdownloader
- Jach 15y ago
  I'm a big fan of the Firefox addon DownloadHelper. It works for pretty much everything.
farhanpatel 15y ago
My personal fav. http://offliberty.com/ http://offliberty.com/ works with mixcloud as well.
noahth 15y ago
Nobody has said this here yet (though it is mentioned in the github comments), so I guess I'll be that guy. Considering that Soundcloud gives uploaders the option to allow downloads, it's a pretty gross violation of the artists' intent to download tracks that aren't already explicitly downloadable. Many artists even offer an alternative download location in the track description for cases where Soundcloud's limit is exceeded. And, as zmitri has pointed out, it is perhaps of greater concern that tools like this make it harder for entities like Soundcloud to justify their existence to stingy music rights holders. I'm not saying you're the reason we get things like SOPA, but this is the kind of thing that allows the grinches at the RIAA to feel justified in asking for sweeping changes to the internet we know and love. So, nice little piece of work you've done here, but as a reformed music pirate trying to stay clean, I'm going to have to stay away. tl;dr - This is why we can't have nice things.
some1else 15y ago
As noted, this is not a vulnerability, because it just makes it easier to save the streaming version of the song (16bit 44100Hz @ 128kbps). Notice the difference between the lousy 128k version and the original WAV download on this song: http://soundcloud.com/some1else/foreign-atonality http://soundcloud.com/some1else/foreign-atonality You probably want to buy or download the high quality version.

66 points by gmaster1440 15y ago

Some others and I wrote a CLI for this: github.com:ngokevin/soundcloud-dl And integrated into youtube-dl. So youtube-dl master supports Soundcloud.

bravura 15y ago
I have the latest youtube-dl, but it doesn't seem to work: $ youtube-dl 'http://soundcloud.com/platform/red-stripe-make-sessions-001/s-cnhHf' [soundcloud] platform/red-stripe-make-sessions-001: Downloading webpage ERROR: unable to download video webpage: HTTP Error 404: Not Found Also, soundcloud-dl has an issue with that URL.

JonnieCache 15y ago

FYI you can get the streaming url from their public API, you don't have to muck around with string interpolation. They know it's easy to get so they just put it right there in the API for you to use. Also if you used the api you could have your script preferentially download the original file if the artist made it available. http://developers.soundcloud.com/docs/api/tracks http://developers.soundcloud.com/docs/api/tracks Ultimately though the stream is a 128 kbyte/s mp3, probably transcoded, and as such you should all feel slightly ashamed of yourselves :)

jlogsdon 15y ago
And their encoding is generally pretty bad, unless you the master you upload is already 128 kbyte/s. Even wavs are affected :( http://www.reddit.com/r/edmproduction/comments/qhrcw/soundclouds_file_compression_is_ruining_one_of_my/ http://www.reddit.com/r/edmproduction/comments/qhrcw/soundcl...
dustingetz 15y ago
> They know it's easy to get so they just put it right there in the API for you to use. I'd love to see TOS confirming this
cyborg 15y ago
Also should be noted that a subset of songs have a download url

zmitri 15y ago

It's also quite easy to spot the url using firebug or chrome's developer tools and the "network" tab. Most sites (tumblr, turntable.fm, etc) use flash to stream the music, and require a call to a url which then creates a public s3 link which is fed to the flash player via js api. tumblr also appends a quaint little parameter called "plead" to the end of their music urls. ?plead=please-dont-download-this-or-our-lawyers-wont-let-us-host-audio

moe 15y ago

That's nice, but much more importantly, here's the script to hide these awful track-comments by default: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/98339 http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/98339 Soundcloud is actually a fun site when the browser is not constantly bogged down and the screen not constantly flashing with 200 popups.

phwd 15y ago
Does it work for Chrome (using 17.0.963.65 Mac)? Using It seems to just break the individual song page and does not affect songs within the /dashboard. 1-2 of the reviews seem to share my experience. I have it queued up as answer to a question a user had here http://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/20868/hide-comments-by-default-on-soundcloud http://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/20868/hide-commen...
- moe 15y ago
  It works for me on Chrome/Mac, but now that you say it, perhaps I found a different one when I quickly re-googled for this comment - sorry for that. When in doubt try google with "soundcloud hide comment script", I think there are 2 or 3 around, one of them definitely works.

kmf 15y ago

turned into a Safari extz: https://github.com/imkmf/soundcloud-download https://github.com/imkmf/soundcloud-download

viana007 15y ago

In many cases to download files from sites like this, I recommend Jdownloader

Jach 15y ago
I'm a big fan of the Firefox addon DownloadHelper. It works for pretty much everything.

farhanpatel 15y ago

My personal fav. http://offliberty.com/ http://offliberty.com/ works with mixcloud as well.

noahth 15y ago

Nobody has said this here yet (though it is mentioned in the github comments), so I guess I'll be that guy. Considering that Soundcloud gives uploaders the option to allow downloads, it's a pretty gross violation of the artists' intent to download tracks that aren't already explicitly downloadable. Many artists even offer an alternative download location in the track description for cases where Soundcloud's limit is exceeded. And, as zmitri has pointed out, it is perhaps of greater concern that tools like this make it harder for entities like Soundcloud to justify their existence to stingy music rights holders. I'm not saying you're the reason we get things like SOPA, but this is the kind of thing that allows the grinches at the RIAA to feel justified in asking for sweeping changes to the internet we know and love. So, nice little piece of work you've done here, but as a reformed music pirate trying to stay clean, I'm going to have to stay away. tl;dr - This is why we can't have nice things.

some1else 15y ago

As noted, this is not a vulnerability, because it just makes it easier to save the streaming version of the song (16bit 44100Hz @ 128kbps). Notice the difference between the lousy 128k version and the original WAV download on this song: http://soundcloud.com/some1else/foreign-atonality http://soundcloud.com/some1else/foreign-atonality You probably want to buy or download the high quality version.