merge wav files

linuxhippy · 06-01-2007, 10:27 AM

I am using grip to rip my audio cds and later convert to mp3 files. I'm finding that some cds have multiple tracks, so it's ripping track1-track7 as wav files. I want to merge these multiple wav files to 1 big file for each cd. I tried using cat file1.wav file2.wav file3.wav bigfile.wav and got a bunch of strange characters flying by on the screen for a long time and no bigfile.wav was written. I eventually did a CTRL-c and stopped it.

How could I merge these wav files?

pusrob · 06-01-2007, 10:43 AM

Hi.
Did you tried to use Audacity? This is the tool if you wanna create on big wav from many smaller wavs. Audacity has many functions, including direct export to mp3s. It uses lame to code, but only can create constant bitrate mp3s without id3 tags. Use EasyTag for tagging your mp3 files.

pwc101 · 06-01-2007, 10:53 AM

Your cat command might have worked, but you need to specify an output file, otherwise cat just spews whatever it's catting to standard output. So, this might have worked:

Code:

cat myfile_1.wav myfile_2.wav ... myfile_n.wav > bigfile.wav

Note: I haven't tested this, but this is why you were getting all those strange characters on your screen.

linuxhippy · 06-01-2007, 11:11 AM

cat worked...I forgot the > bigfile.wav. I got a file that is equal in size to each smaller file. Unfortunately, when I play it with Amarok or xmms it will only play for ~ 12 minutes. That's the time length of the first small file. Why won't it play the entire file?

pwc101 · 06-01-2007, 11:18 AM

Hmmm. Probably because the audio program comes across some code in the merged wave file that it considers to be the end of a file, and so it stops playing it at that point, essentially ignoring everything thereafter.

Google showed me this page of audio tools, one of which (wavbreaker/wavmerge) seems fairly promising.

I'm sure that mencoder (part of mplayer) could do this too, I just don't know how.

edit: or just use audacity as pusrob suggested

erklaerbaer · 06-01-2007, 11:23 AM

have a look at sox.

Quote:

sox myfile_1.wav myfile_2.wav ... myfile_n.wav bigfile.wav

could just work.
maybe also of interest is
http://sox.sourceforge.net/Docs/Scripts

H_TeXMeX_H · 06-01-2007, 11:30 AM

Try this:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/wavtools/

"wavmerge: merge several wav-files into one file"

jr_bob_dobbs · 03-25-2020, 09:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by erklaerbaer

have a look at sox.

Quote:

sox myfile_1.wav myfile_2.wav ... myfile_n.wav bigfile.wav

could just work.

This will work. In the above, the last file name will be the output file. I have used sox before in a similar situation. Bonus, sox is already part of slackware, so no need to find and compile stuff. Keeping it simple.

FlinchX · 03-25-2020, 09:59 AM

Code:

cat foo bar > baz

is a pattern used to join plain text files

Joining binary files like this may work or not, depending of their format. it may work with raw data files that have no headers, but otherwise won't.

bassmadrigal · 03-25-2020, 10:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jr_bob_dobbs

This will work. In the above, the last file name will be the output file. I have used sox before in a similar situation. Bonus, sox is already part of slackware, so no need to find and compile stuff. Keeping it simple.

This thread is 13 years old... What was the reason for bringing it back from the dead? All you did was confirm something someone else posted.