13 Awesome (and Free) Tools to Rip Audio From Video

Has it ever happened that you come across a music video video on YouTube and just feel like downloading the audio track, not the entire video? or may be you want to extract the amazing songs from that boring movie DVD? You’d need an audio ripper, a software that can extract audio from video, to accomplish both these tasks.

The following list talks about 13 such tools that can rip audio from video. Only tools that are free are included. Although Windows only software dominates the list, you’ll both find both cross-platform, as well as web based software among them. Check it out.

1. Pazera Audio Extractor

Pazera Free Audio Extractor, as the name suggests, is a free software to rip audio from video files. The tool is Windows only, and can extract audio from a variety of file formats like AVI, WMV, VOB, MP4 and more. The output formats could be MP3, WAV, WMA, AAC etc. The good thing about this tool is that it comes with certain pre-defined settings, and is straight-forward to use. You can also use it to convert audio from one format to another.

2. Oxelon Media Converter

Previously mentioned Oxelon Media Converter can also extract sound from video files apart from acting as an audio / video converter. The tool integrates conversion and extraction options in the right-click menu, so you could just right click a video file and start the process. It offers a special direct stream copy feature to rip high quality audio from AVI and other video files.

3. Any Audio Converter

Any Audio Converter is another Windows only freeware to extract audio from video files. It can rip audio from all kinds of video formats to MP3, WMA, WMV, ACC and more. It can also extract sound tracks or songs from DVDs. The tool is from the same folks who created the cool DVD Smith Movie Backup that rips DVDs to your computer.

4. AoA Audio Extractor

AoA Audio Extractor has both free and paid editions. The freeware can rip sound and background music from video files, including FLV (flash files). You could also use it to extract specific portions of the audio instead of the entire track.

5. Audacity

Audacity is probably the best known audio editing software that’s free and cross-platform, meaning it has versions for Windows, Mac and Linux. Although there isn’t a direct way to do it, this tool is quite advanced and can be used to rip audio from certain video file types. If you are an experienced Audacity user and know how to use it to extract audio from videos, do share that knowledge in the comments.

6. iExtractMP3

iExtractMP3 is a software for Mac users that can extract the sound from FLV files (the link is the translated version of its original site in Japanese). It doesn’t reduce the quality of audio while extracting it. Here’s a guide on using this tool.

7. VidtoMP3

VidtoMP3 is a web based tool to convert videos from sites like YouTube, Megavideo, Vimeo etc to MP3 files that can be downloaded to your computer. A nice way to convert online music videos to MP3 audio tracks.

8. Free Video to Audio Converter

We profiled Free Video to Audio Converter few months ago on this site. It’s a robust audio extractor for Windows computers, and can do almost all the things you would want an audio extractor to do, all in a simple and easy to use user interface.

9. Ocenaudio

Ocenaudio Editor If you seek an audio editor that works on Windows and Mac OS, then Ocenaudio is your best bet. Apart from the usual features, it stands out from the rest with the real-time preview of the audio effects. Also, if you are using a large files, then the program will ensure that they don’t get corrupt during the editing proceess.

10. Video2mp3

Video2mp3, a tool we first mentioned in our mammoth YouTube guide, is a simple online tool to convert videos to MP3s in standard as well as high quality. The resultant file can be downloaded to your computer.

11. YouTube to MP3 Firefox Add-on

The YouTube to MP3 add-on for Firefox can help Firefox users directly download YouTube videos as MP3 files by adding convert and download as MP3 link. It also works on sites like DailyMotion and MySpace, and is created by same folks who developed Video2Mp3.

12. Avidemux

Avidemux is a free, cross-platform video editor that, apart from its primary function of editing videos, can also demux (or rip) audio from video files. It’s available for Windows, Linux and Mac. Here’s a tutorial on using Avidemux to extract audio from video.

13. Free DVD MP3 Ripper

Finally, we have Free DVD MP3 Ripper that can extract audio as MP3 from DVDs (.VOB files), VCDs and MPEG files. The software hasn’t been updated for a long time, but still seems to work well. The user interface is self-explanatory, and it helps you get the job done quickly.

So, which ones of the above you’ve used before? Which ones did I miss?