Joining Several Files Into One

[dsquire]

Hi Gang

Years ago I used to be able to join 2 small files together to make 1 longer file in DOS. I can no longer remember how I did that or what the command was. I want to join several short *.mp3 files together to make one longer *.mp3 file. These files are from an audio book that I have and are between 8 and 12 minutes long and I would like to make them into files that would be about an hour long so that I don't have to reload every few minutes.

Like I said, I used to know how to do it but that was 15 years ago and I have long since forgotten how. I have Windows XP so can probably drop down to the DOS prompt or do it through windows if there is a way. Any help will be much appreciated. 

Cheers 

Don

[stovebolt]

Telling on myself, I read the subject line without reading the forum ,

So I'm thinking, why would want to join files together ????           

[kwackers]

Using dos you'd have used the copy command to copy multiple files to a single destination.

With MP3 files you can't just join them though, they contain information that tell how each file should be read so at best concatenating them will simply make them bigger whilst still only playing the original file and worse case the file will no longer play.

To join them you need some form of audio editor, it'll read them in, 'normalise' them and write them back out to one longer file.

The following search should throw up some useful pointers.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=merge+mp3+files&meta=

[AdeV]

There's a freeware program called Audacity which will do exactly what you want - it has a half decent interface too.

[kvom]

The DOS command is cat (concatenate).

cat file1 file2 > file3

[dsquire]

Hey Guys and Gals

This is what I finally found when searching with google once I knew what to search for.

 MP3 & MPEG Joiner 1.6
at    http://mmj.fronoh.com/Content/MMJ/

I downloaded it and tried it out on a bunch of files and then checked to make sure that they were in the right order. It worked fine and was easy to use.


kwackers

The search link that you provided would certainly have provided a workable program if I had not already found the one above. Thanks very much for posting it.

I did find that the following DOS command worked OK and I could join the 3 files and listen to them OK but I used the above program to join them as it is windows based and does not require all the typing that the DOS command line does.

"type file1.mp3 file2.mp3 file3.mp3 > newfile.mp3"


AdeV

I haven't tried "Audacity" yet but I will download it and give it a try.

Thanks for your response and tip , it is much appreciated


Kvom

This didn't work, it says "'cat' is not recognized as an internal or external command, oprable progtam or batch file. I am doing this with WIndow XP, Possibly with an earlier version of DOS it would recognize the command. See above for a DOS command that did seem to work.

cat file1 file2 > file3

Thanks very much for the response and tip Kvom 

Cheers 

Don

[AdeV]

Don - I'm surprised that your "type" trick worked, mp3 must be a more tolerant format than I imagined...

I think "cat" is used on linux systems; for DOS, you'd use COPY instead, e.g.:

copy file1.mp3 + file2.mp3 + file3.mp3 bigfile.mp3

But... as you say, it's a lot of typing, especially if the MP3s have typically long names...

[kwackers]

Don - I'm surprised that your "type" trick worked, mp3 must be a more tolerant format than I imagined...

I think "cat" is used on linux systems; for DOS, you'd use COPY instead, e.g.:

copy file1.mp3 + file2.mp3 + file3.mp3 bigfile.mp3

But... as you say, it's a lot of typing, especially if the MP3s have typically long names...

Me too! I must admit to not knowing the format of MP3 files, but at the very least there must be information in a header that tells it things like the sample rate...
Perhaps it only works properly if the sample rates are all the same? Possibly there's a tiny burst of noise as it interprets the following headers as data??
I'm going to have to play with this, my curiosity is aroused...

[kvom]

Cat is indeed Unix command.  Need "type" instead.

[michvhf]

Cat is indeed Unix command.  Need "type" instead.

Actually copy /b file1 + file2 + file3 bigfile

The /b means it's a binary copy.  Either way for mp3 files it won't work anyway and someone's suggestion of using audacity is the best solution.  Very easy to use and you can add space in between the files, remove parts of the files, etc.