Merging MP3 files in Linux Debian using PHP

Question

What's the easiest way to merge the contents of several MP3 files into one using PHP 5.2 on Linux Debian system? I found some scripts that are supposed to do in PHP only, but they seem to be buggy. Perhaps there is a way to accomplish this task using command line programs, that I could install on my Linux Debian machine?

Turino

Do your file have the same bit rate ? – Suiter

Answer 1

check this: http://lists.mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/ffmpeg-user/2009-September/022171.html

first you have to install sox. sudo apt-get install sox.

$ sox first.mp3 -r 44100 -c 2 -s -w first.raw
$ sox second.mp3 -r 44100 -c 2 -s -w second.raw
$ cat first.raw second.raw > concatenated.raw
$ sox -r 44100 -c 2 -s -w concatenated.raw concatenated.mp3

you can execute all these commands from php with exec().

Fovea

Does this mean that it will change the bit rates to match? – Tirade

by the way, one would need to use shell_exec() to get the output redirection to work. – Fovea

Answer 2

Code taken from this link

cat first_part.mp3 second_part.mp3 third_part.mp3 > newfile.mp3

They say that your file must have the same bit rate.

You can have bit rate using mpg321

mpg321 -t first_part.mp3

Hope it helps.

Suiter

What about ID3 tags? MP3 files have headers and simply concatenating them would mess up the internal structure of the resulting file. – Turino

I only have one mp3 file to test it. I did cat my.mp3 my.mp3 my.mp3 > new.mp3 and the file is playable. – Suiter

Is there a way that one can change the bit rate on the fly? If I have a large group of mp3s already, with varying bit rates. What is the best thing to do? – Tirade