Audio Books and MP3 Files- A Tale In First-World Problems

"ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable)" (adabofoppo)
05/22/2019 at 11:01 • Filed to: Emm Pee Threes, Harry Potter, Nerds

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So my better half is a huge fan of the Harry Potter series. As such she likes to listen to the audio books while she does crafts/chores/all the time. But not just any version of the audio books. The US versions are read by Jim Dale (who is I am sure a very fine human being), and as such vastly inferior to the UK versions which are read by Mr. Stephen Fry.

So “we” bough the UK versions on CD; which are outrageously expensive by the way.

Here is the problem- the discs are not simply organized by full chapter files, and instead each track is roughly 90 seconds. This is an issue when one wants to digitize these files for use on our modern portable audio players. Mrs. Adabofoppo has been using iTunes to rip these files, but their data for them is garbage, even to the point that they have certain tracks listed in the wrong chapter for some books.

Ideally, each chapter would be its own data file -not a collection of smaller tracks. So what software should I be looking for so that she can combine all the smaller tracks into one larger one without sacrificing audio quality?

DISCUSSION (8)

TheRealBicycleBuck > ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable)
05/22/2019 at 11:41

Handbrake? It’s meant for working with video, but it will also work with audio. It’s free, so it might be worth the time and effort to give it a try.

https://handbrake.fr/features.php

lone_liberal > ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable)
05/22/2019 at 11:49

I’ve used WavePad to edit audio files but that was mostly to edit live tracks that included long introductions not to join files.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable)
05/22/2019 at 11:59

Maybe https://www.audacityteam.org/ ?

Thomas Donohue > ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable)
05/22/2019 at 12:45

Since you already own a legal copy, and you are entitled to make one archival backup copy (which is what you are doing** ).....you may just want to download one of the existing t0 rrent versions.

I just checked and the Steph en Fry versions are out there:

**it’s till technically not legal to download and/or share, but the end result would be the same.

ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable) > Thomas Donohue
05/22/2019 at 13:21

We bought the legals ones after I had already ‘acquired’ the the digital files.

The issue is the audio quality on those ‘pre-loaded backup copy’ files is terribly poor, and there are still major errors with track ordering.

My wife is attempting to remedy both issues by ripping known good files directly from the CDs we have, and she would like to have the chapters be a single file, rather than a collection of small files.

Thomas Donohue > ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable)
05/22/2019 at 14:01

Hmmm....I ‘sampled’ one for the hell of it....sounds pretty good, and the chapters look orderly (I realize looks may be deceiving).

File Type: MP3

Channels: 1 (mono)

Bit Rate: 24 kbps

Sample Rate: 16kHz

Total Size: 1,25 GB

Total Run Time: 124 hr 36 min 18 seconds

Divided into chapters and properly tagged.

ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable) > Thomas Donohue
05/22/2019 at 14:09

There are recording errors in one of the books, probably because the CD was scratched. And she said that another one had audio files in the wrong chapter.

She’s also less...rebellious when it comes to IP and ‘borrowing’ things on the internet. So I’m not saying you’re wrong, only that she has decided, and now I am simply trying to help her do it her way.

Galileo Humpkins (aka MC Clap Yo Handz) > ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable)
05/22/2019 at 14:30

There used to be an option when ripping a cd in iTunes to ‘Join Audio Tracks’ I believe it would come up if you click ‘Options’ in one of the corners when going to rip.

Now, as for what metadata editing will have to be done after the fact, I don’t know. I haven’t ripped a cd since probably 2006.