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Not interested in Adobe Premiere Elements (at this time). RealPlayer meets all of my video to audio conversion needs. And it has met these needs for years.

In any event, RealPlayer does this well.


From reading this thread and your complaints, I don't think so — or you don't know what you are doing — or you are not understanding what people are telling you as they try to help.

My vote? All 3 are correct.

BTW, not only do I have the copy of Tapestry that I bought in high school when first released, I also have the MFSL half-speed vinyl. CDs weren't on the market yet for either release.

YouTube process audio when uploaded—even the official releases. This often adds artifacts and distortion. Further processing cannot make the signal better—ever—but can certainly make it worse. This is why I recommended getting ahold of an original copy and bouncing that down.

"You Got a Friend at 44.1kHz/16bit on the 2008 remastered CD is 54.7MB .wav file. It's 9.1MB as a VBR mp3 and 4.2 as 128k mp3. mp3 settings are Joint Stereo, best quality. I also have it as a 27.5MB m4a ALAC for iTunes. The sound is barely acceptable at 128. I bounced these down last year as I prepared the music for my 50th high school reunion so no new work here. I do all of these bounces in TwistedWave where I have control over every aspect if I need.

A digital capture of the "Official…" audio from YouTube reveals a 9.9MB m4a file as expected. It is bass heavy compared with other versions and there are a number of artifacts — but they match noises from James Taylor's guitar, percussion or damper noises from the piano. The 128k that I did has many of the same noises but they are more musical when bounced from a much cleaner recording; the bass is much better on the 128k, also.

Likewise, the 128k mp3 bounced from "Official…" YouTube m4a is crap.


I get that, because the tools I use cost a little money, you won't consider them. I, however, am not the one with the problem.

BIAB 2023 Audiophile, 24/60 Core M2 Mac Studio Ultra/8TB/192GB Sonoma, M1 MBAir, 2012 MBP
Digital Performer 11, LogicPro
Finale27.4, Dorico5, Encore5, SmartScorePro64, Notion6, Overture5