Loss-less merging of MP3 files

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ItsMe
Posts: 8
Joined: Sun Mar 05, 2006 5:49 pm

Loss-less merging of MP3 files

Post by ItsMe »

I need to merge a number of mp3 files. Am I right in thinking that if I open them, join them and then re-save as a single mp3 file I will get decoding and re-encoding losses?

Can Goldwave perform a loss-less joining of mp3 files?
holtram
Posts: 78
Joined: Mon Feb 07, 2005 2:29 pm

Post by holtram »

If you use GoldWave to do the merging, then I believe you will be degrading the final file, as GoldWave does do a re-save through the lame_enc encoder.

If you're familiar with DOS at all however Chris showed me a pretty simple little .bat program you can use to perform the join which is very fast and I believe is lossless. Here is some of the sample code from mine. Granted my file naming makes copy-paste of joins pretty easy and I don't know how difficult it would be for you, but it's worth a try. Here I've combined 8 mp3 files into one large file named Disc 01.mp3:

@echo off
set dir="C:\documents and settings\holtram\my documents\jukebox"

echo Your directory is %dir%
echo

pause

cd %dir%

echo on

copy /B "Disc 01 - 01.mp3" + "Disc 01 - 02.mp3" "Disc 01.mp3"
copy /B "Disc 01.mp3" + "Disc 01 - 03.mp3" "Disc 01.mp3"
copy /B "Disc 01.mp3" + "Disc 01 - 04.mp3" "Disc 01.mp3"
copy /B "Disc 01.mp3" + "Disc 01 - 05.mp3" "Disc 01.mp3"
copy /B "Disc 01.mp3" + "Disc 01 - 06.mp3" "Disc 01.mp3"
copy /B "Disc 01.mp3" + "Disc 01 - 07.mp3" "Disc 01.mp3"
copy /B "Disc 01.mp3" + "Disc 01 - 08.mp3" "Disc 01.mp3"

pause
DougDbug
Posts: 2172
Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2005 3:33 pm
Location: Silicon Valley

Post by DougDbug »

Yes. If you edit an MP3 with GoldWave, it will go through an additional lossy encode cycle when you save it. Most editing simply can't be done without first decoding the MP3.

However, it is technically possible to cut & splice (and apparently normalize) without decoding.

I don't own it, but there is a program called MP3 Sergeon ($30 USD) that can do lossless editing on MP3s.
SuperHank
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Mar 09, 2007 4:42 pm

sorry

Post by SuperHank »

Ehm sorry to say but MP3 is a data loosing codec

If you need no information los you will end up i think with FLAC (its freeware) so you can do lots of edits over several days.

And then save the endproduct in mp3

And software that doesnt doesnt make data loose in MP3 does Not exist
It simply can not be lossless trough MP3, that's the way that codec works
you'll require a better codec for such operations.
Emmett
Posts: 76
Joined: Mon Feb 12, 2007 2:08 am

Re: sorry

Post by Emmett »

SuperHank wrote:Ehm sorry to say but MP3 is a data loosing codec

If you need no information los you will end up i think with FLAC (its freeware) so you can do lots of edits over several days.

And then save the endproduct in mp3

And software that doesnt doesnt make data loose in MP3 does Not exist
It simply can not be lossless trough MP3, that's the way that codec works
you'll require a better codec for such operations.
I think the OP was asking for a program to edit mp3 files without decoding to PCM and re-encoding, which would result in double-masking. As mentioned above, such is available...But its operations are very limited. Of course any program will cause data loss when encoding directly to mp3, but there certainly are native mp3 editors that do not induce further quality loss.

Emmett
mh
Posts: 133
Joined: Thu Aug 10, 2006 6:20 pm

Post by mh »

The MP3 format is just discrete chunks of binary data, each of which is quite capable of existing independently from the rest. This is why a half-ripped (or half-downloaded) MP3 can be played perfectly fine.

Merging them together is just a simple matter of concatenating the binary data. There's no need to go through any codec to do this, and any half-way competent C programmer could knock up a tool to do it in a very short time.
audioman
Posts: 28
Joined: Thu Feb 08, 2007 11:06 pm

Free MP3 Editor

Post by audioman »

Hi,
You might want to look into a free program called "MP3 Direct Cut", by Martin Pesch (www.mpesch3.de).
It's a terrific program and could very well fit your needs!
Cheers,
Fred
lilygol
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Mar 14, 2007 2:44 am

Cool Mp3 Splitter Joiner

Post by lilygol »

Cool Mp3 Splitter Joiner
Cool Mp3 Splitter Joiner is a powerful audio editor which builds MP3 splitter joiner and WAV splitter joiner. It supports MP3, WAV format. You can cut a new small file from a large audio file, and you can also merge multiple files to a large new one.

Cool Mp3 Splitter Joiner supports batch merging! With a small audio player built in, you can set the Splitting/joining's start-time/end-time just when pre-listening to the song. Splitting/joining in high precision and no quality is lost! If you're looking for an application for audio Splitting or Merging, you won't be disappointed by Cool Mp3 Splitter Joiner!
http://www.qweas.com/download/audio_mp3 ... joiner.htm
Cool Mp3 Splitter Joiner is very easy to use. If you're looking for an application for audio Splitting or Merging, you won't be disappointed by Cool Mp3 Splitter Joiner! :D :o
donrandall
Posts: 550
Joined: Wed Dec 01, 2004 11:06 pm
Location: Denver, Colorado

Post by donrandall »

I don't claim to know anything about the Cool mp3 splitter/joiner - - but I do remember a time when my computer was hijacked by something that used the word "Cool" in everyone of it's disguises that it planted all over my computer.

This thing may be legitimate - but then again, I would recommend caution.
Kummel
Posts: 141
Joined: Sat Sep 23, 2006 7:10 pm

Post by Kummel »

donrandall wrote:when my computer was hijacked by something that used the word "Cool" ...
Cool Web Searcher ?
:D
donrandall
Posts: 550
Joined: Wed Dec 01, 2004 11:06 pm
Location: Denver, Colorado

Post by donrandall »

Yessir - that's the one. Nasty, nasty, nasty. Did I mention that is is a nasty one?

After a lot of pain and misery, I ultimately scrubbed and scoured the hard drive and reloaded everything I needed and wanted.
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