What is the best way to merge mp3 files

Question

I ve got many  many mp3 files that I would like to merge into a single file   I ve used the command line method  copy  b 1 mp3 2 mp3 3 mp3   but it s a pain when there s a lot of them and their namings are inconsistent   The time never seems to come out right either

User · Answer

Personally I would use something like mplayer with the audio pass though option eg -oac copy

User · Answer

As Thomas Owens pointed out  simply concatenating the files will leave multiple ID3 headers scattered throughout the resulting concatenated file - so the time bitrate info will be wildly wrong   You re going to need to use a tool which can combine the audio data for you   mp3wrap would be ideal for this - it s designed to join together MP3 files  without needing to decode   re-encode the data  which would result in a loss of audio quality  and will also deal with the ID3 tags intelligently   The resulting file can also be split back into its component parts using the mp3splt tool - mp3wrap adds information to the IDv3 comment to allow this

User · Answer

Personally I would use something like mplayer with the audio pass though option eg -oac copy

User · Answer

What I really wanted was a GUI to reorder them and output them as one file  Playlist Producer does exactly that  decoding and reencoding them into a combined MP3  It s designed for creating mix tapes or simple podcasts  but you might find it useful    Disclosure  I wrote the software  and I profit if you buy the Pro Edition  The Lite edition is a free version with a few limitations

User · Answer

I would use Winamp to do this  Create a playlist of files you want to merge into one  select Disk Writer output plugin  choose filename and you re done  The file you will get will be correct MP3 file and you can set bitrate etc

User · Answer

The time problem has to do with the ID3 headers of the MP3 files  which is something your method isn t taking into account as the entire file is copied   Do you have a language of choice that you want to use or doesn t it matter  That will affect what libraries are available that support the operations you want

User · Answer

I d not heard of mp3wrap before   Looks great   I m guessing someone s made it into a gui as well somewhere   But  just to respond to the original post  I ve written a gui that does the COPY  b method   So  under the covers  nothing new under the sun  but the program is all about making the process less painful if you have a lot of files to merge   AND you don t want to re-encode AND each set of files to merge are the same bitrate   If you have that  and you re on Windows   check out Mp3Merge at  http   www leighweb com david mp3merge and see if that s what you re looking for

User · Answer

The time problem has to do with the ID3 headers of the MP3 files  which is something your method isn t taking into account as the entire file is copied   Do you have a language of choice that you want to use or doesn t it matter  That will affect what libraries are available that support the operations you want

User · Answer

Personally I would use something like mplayer with the audio pass though option eg -oac copy

User · Answer

David s answer is correct that just concatenating the files will leave ID3 tags scattered inside  although this doesn t normally affect playback  so you can do  copy  b  or on UNIX  cat a mp3 b mp3   combined mp3  in a pinch    However  mp3wrap isn t exactly the right tool to just combine multiple MP3s into one  clean  file  Rather than using ID3  it actually inserts its own custom data format in amongst the MP3 frames  the  wrap  part   which causes issues with playback  particularly on iTunes and iPods  Although the file will play back fine if you just let them run from start to finish  because players will skip these is arbitrary non-MPEG bytes  the file duration and bitrate will be reported incorrectly  which breaks seeking  Also  mp3wrap will wipe out all your ID3 metadata  including cover art  and fail to update the VBR header with the correct file length   mp3cat on its own will produce a good concatenated data file  so  better than mp3wrap   but it also strips ID3 tags and fails to update the VBR header with the correct length of the joined file   Here s a good explanation of these issues and method  two actually  to combine MP3 files and produce a  clean  final result with original metadata intact -- it s command-line so works on Mac Linux BSD etc  It uses    mp3cat to combine the MPEG data frames only into a continuous file  then id3cp to copy all metadata over to the combined file  and finally  VBRFix to update the VBR header    For a Windows GUI tool  take a look at Merge MP3 -- it takes care of everything   VBRFix also comes in GUI form  but it doesn t do the joining

User · Answer

As Thomas Owens pointed out  simply concatenating the files will leave multiple ID3 headers scattered throughout the resulting concatenated file - so the time bitrate info will be wildly wrong   You re going to need to use a tool which can combine the audio data for you   mp3wrap would be ideal for this - it s designed to join together MP3 files  without needing to decode   re-encode the data  which would result in a loss of audio quality  and will also deal with the ID3 tags intelligently   The resulting file can also be split back into its component parts using the mp3splt tool - mp3wrap adds information to the IDv3 comment to allow this

User · Answer

As David says  mp3wrap is the way to go  However  I found that it didn t fix the audio length header  so iTunes refused to play the whole file even though all the data was there   I merged three 7-minute files  but it only saw up to the first 7 minutes    I dug up this blog post  which explains how to fix this and also how to copy the ID3 tags over from the original files  on its own  mp3wrap deletes your ID3 tags   Or to just copy the tags  using id3cp from id3lib   do   id3cp original mp3 new mp3

User · Answer

Instead of using the command line to do      copy  b 1 mp3 2 mp3 3 mp3   you could instead use  The Rename  to rename all the MP3 fragments into a series of names that are in order based on some kind of counter  Then you could just use the same command line format but change it a little to       copy  b   mp3 output name mp3   That is assuming you ripped all of these fragment MP3 s at the same time and they have the same audio settings  Worked great for me when I was converting an Audio book I had in  aa to a single  mp3  I had to burn all the  aa files to 9 CD s then rip all 9 CD s and then I was left with about 90 mp3 s  Really a pain in the a55

User · Answer

Use ffmpeg or a similar tool to convert all of your MP3s into a consistent format  e g     ffmpeg -i originalA mp3 -f mp3 -ab 128kb -ar 44100 -ac 2 intermediateA mp3   ffmpeg -i originalB mp3 -f mp3 -ab 128kb -ar 44100 -ac 2 intermediateB mp3   Then  at runtime  concat your files together     cat intermediateA mp3 intermediateB mp3  gt  output mp3   Finally  run them through the tool MP3Val to fix any stream errors without forcing a full re-encode     mp3val output mp3 -f -nb

User · Answer

As Thomas Owens pointed out  simply concatenating the files will leave multiple ID3 headers scattered throughout the resulting concatenated file - so the time bitrate info will be wildly wrong   You re going to need to use a tool which can combine the audio data for you   mp3wrap would be ideal for this - it s designed to join together MP3 files  without needing to decode   re-encode the data  which would result in a loss of audio quality  and will also deal with the ID3 tags intelligently   The resulting file can also be split back into its component parts using the mp3splt tool - mp3wrap adds information to the IDv3 comment to allow this

User · Answer

David s answer is correct that just concatenating the files will leave ID3 tags scattered inside  although this doesn t normally affect playback  so you can do  copy  b  or on UNIX  cat a mp3 b mp3   combined mp3  in a pinch    However  mp3wrap isn t exactly the right tool to just combine multiple MP3s into one  clean  file  Rather than using ID3  it actually inserts its own custom data format in amongst the MP3 frames  the  wrap  part   which causes issues with playback  particularly on iTunes and iPods  Although the file will play back fine if you just let them run from start to finish  because players will skip these is arbitrary non-MPEG bytes  the file duration and bitrate will be reported incorrectly  which breaks seeking  Also  mp3wrap will wipe out all your ID3 metadata  including cover art  and fail to update the VBR header with the correct file length   mp3cat on its own will produce a good concatenated data file  so  better than mp3wrap   but it also strips ID3 tags and fails to update the VBR header with the correct length of the joined file   Here s a good explanation of these issues and method  two actually  to combine MP3 files and produce a  clean  final result with original metadata intact -- it s command-line so works on Mac Linux BSD etc  It uses    mp3cat to combine the MPEG data frames only into a continuous file  then id3cp to copy all metadata over to the combined file  and finally  VBRFix to update the VBR header    For a Windows GUI tool  take a look at Merge MP3 -- it takes care of everything   VBRFix also comes in GUI form  but it doesn t do the joining

User · Answer

If you want something free with a simple user interface that makes a completely clean mp3 I recommend MP3 Joiner   Features    Strips ID3 data  both ID3v1 and ID3v2 x  and doesn t add it s own  unlike mp3wrap  Lossless joining  doesn t decode and re-encode the  mp3s   No codecs required  Simple UI  see below  Low memory usage  uses streams  Very fast  compared to mp3wrap  I wrote it    - so you can request features and I ll add them      Links    MP3 Joiner website  Here Latest installer  Here

User · Answer

Personally I would use something like mplayer with the audio pass though option eg -oac copy

User · Answer

I would use Winamp to do this  Create a playlist of files you want to merge into one  select Disk Writer output plugin  choose filename and you re done  The file you will get will be correct MP3 file and you can set bitrate etc

User · Answer

If you want something free with a simple user interface that makes a completely clean mp3 I recommend MP3 Joiner   Features    Strips ID3 data  both ID3v1 and ID3v2 x  and doesn t add it s own  unlike mp3wrap  Lossless joining  doesn t decode and re-encode the  mp3s   No codecs required  Simple UI  see below  Low memory usage  uses streams  Very fast  compared to mp3wrap  I wrote it    - so you can request features and I ll add them      Links    MP3 Joiner website  Here Latest installer  Here

User · Answer

Instead of using the command line to do      copy  b 1 mp3 2 mp3 3 mp3   you could instead use  The Rename  to rename all the MP3 fragments into a series of names that are in order based on some kind of counter  Then you could just use the same command line format but change it a little to       copy  b   mp3 output name mp3   That is assuming you ripped all of these fragment MP3 s at the same time and they have the same audio settings  Worked great for me when I was converting an Audio book I had in  aa to a single  mp3  I had to burn all the  aa files to 9 CD s then rip all 9 CD s and then I was left with about 90 mp3 s  Really a pain in the a55

User · Answer

I d not heard of mp3wrap before   Looks great   I m guessing someone s made it into a gui as well somewhere   But  just to respond to the original post  I ve written a gui that does the COPY  b method   So  under the covers  nothing new under the sun  but the program is all about making the process less painful if you have a lot of files to merge   AND you don t want to re-encode AND each set of files to merge are the same bitrate   If you have that  and you re on Windows   check out Mp3Merge at  http   www leighweb com david mp3merge and see if that s what you re looking for

User · Answer

MP3 files have headers you need to respect   You could ether use a library like Open Source Audio Library Project and write a tool around it  Or you can use a tool that understands mp3 files like Audacity

User · Answer

MP3 files have headers you need to respect   You could ether use a library like Open Source Audio Library Project and write a tool around it  Or you can use a tool that understands mp3 files like Audacity

User · Answer

I would use Winamp to do this  Create a playlist of files you want to merge into one  select Disk Writer output plugin  choose filename and you re done  The file you will get will be correct MP3 file and you can set bitrate etc

User · Answer

MP3 files have headers you need to respect   You could ether use a library like Open Source Audio Library Project and write a tool around it  Or you can use a tool that understands mp3 files like Audacity

User · Answer

MP3 files have headers you need to respect   You could ether use a library like Open Source Audio Library Project and write a tool around it  Or you can use a tool that understands mp3 files like Audacity

User · Answer

As Thomas Owens pointed out  simply concatenating the files will leave multiple ID3 headers scattered throughout the resulting concatenated file - so the time bitrate info will be wildly wrong   You re going to need to use a tool which can combine the audio data for you   mp3wrap would be ideal for this - it s designed to join together MP3 files  without needing to decode   re-encode the data  which would result in a loss of audio quality  and will also deal with the ID3 tags intelligently   The resulting file can also be split back into its component parts using the mp3splt tool - mp3wrap adds information to the IDv3 comment to allow this

User · Answer

Use ffmpeg or a similar tool to convert all of your MP3s into a consistent format  e g     ffmpeg -i originalA mp3 -f mp3 -ab 128kb -ar 44100 -ac 2 intermediateA mp3   ffmpeg -i originalB mp3 -f mp3 -ab 128kb -ar 44100 -ac 2 intermediateB mp3   Then  at runtime  concat your files together     cat intermediateA mp3 intermediateB mp3  gt  output mp3   Finally  run them through the tool MP3Val to fix any stream errors without forcing a full re-encode     mp3val output mp3 -f -nb

User · Answer

As David says  mp3wrap is the way to go  However  I found that it didn t fix the audio length header  so iTunes refused to play the whole file even though all the data was there   I merged three 7-minute files  but it only saw up to the first 7 minutes    I dug up this blog post  which explains how to fix this and also how to copy the ID3 tags over from the original files  on its own  mp3wrap deletes your ID3 tags   Or to just copy the tags  using id3cp from id3lib   do   id3cp original mp3 new mp3

User · Answer

I would use Winamp to do this  Create a playlist of files you want to merge into one  select Disk Writer output plugin  choose filename and you re done  The file you will get will be correct MP3 file and you can set bitrate etc

User · Answer

The time problem has to do with the ID3 headers of the MP3 files  which is something your method isn t taking into account as the entire file is copied   Do you have a language of choice that you want to use or doesn t it matter  That will affect what libraries are available that support the operations you want

User · Answer

The time problem has to do with the ID3 headers of the MP3 files  which is something your method isn t taking into account as the entire file is copied   Do you have a language of choice that you want to use or doesn t it matter  That will affect what libraries are available that support the operations you want

User · Answer

What I really wanted was a GUI to reorder them and output them as one file  Playlist Producer does exactly that  decoding and reencoding them into a combined MP3  It s designed for creating mix tapes or simple podcasts  but you might find it useful    Disclosure  I wrote the software  and I profit if you buy the Pro Edition  The Lite edition is a free version with a few limitations

[audio] What is the best way to merge mp3 files?

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