[geeks] favorite mp3 splitter/joiner/editor?

[Nate]

On Feb 24, 2009, at 5:41 PM, Sandwich Maker wrote:

> i've just ripped an audiobook, 12 cds unabridged.  thanks to itunes, i
> can join tracks to make one mp3 per chapter - mostly; you can't join
> tracks across discs, so i wind up with part 1 / part 2 for some
> chapters.  but that's a minor annoyance; this is the first audiobook
> where they end and begin chapters in the middle of a track, and that's
> really bothersome when i'm trying to organize by chapter.

Re-rip the audio book as either AIFF or WAV (iTunes -> Preferences ->  
General -> Import Settings) so you have uncompressed source files.

> my budget closely approximates $0.  my platform is xp, with osx 10.3
> possible.  an editor that works at the mp3 frame level is fine; i
> don't need to monkey with the audio, just split and join files.

I've used Audacity in the past, but there are other options:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_audio_software

> after several days of searching i've found a raft of possibles, but i
> haven't found one yet that handles id3v2 tags.  i like mp3directcut
> except for that.  visual mp3 splitter ran second, but another also-ran
> had one feature i liked - counting frames, instead of time.  it gave
> me warm fuzzies, though they all say they work on frame boundaries.

Avoid editing MP3 files, the format isn't designed for it.

> i could go round robin hood's barn and use mp3tags to translate
> itunes' v2 tags to v1 then back to v2 after snipping, but information
> is lost.

Manually tag after you're done editing the WAV or AIFF files and  
you've encoded them into MP3s.  No point in fiddling with tags before  
then.

- Nate