[FFmpeg-user] MP4s (and M4As) for music

[Mark Filipak]

On 09/06/2025 07.55, Reino Wijnsma wrote:
> Hello Mark,

Hello, Reino.

> On 2025-06-08T19:27:20+0200, Mark Filipak <markfilipak.imdb-at-gmail.com at ffmpeg.org> wrote:
>> I want archival quality.
> On 2025-06-07T21:17:03+0200, Mark Filipak <markfilipak.imdb-at-gmail.com at ffmpeg.org> wrote:
>> ffmpeg^
>>   -i "c:\Ashra, Correlations [1979] chapters.txt"^
>>   -i c:\01.WAV^
>>   -i c:\02.WAV^
>>   -i c:\03.WAV^
>>   -i c:\04.WAV^
>>   -i c:\05.WAV^
>>   -i c:\06.WAV^
>>   -i c:\07.WAV^
>>   -filter_complex "[1:0][2:0][3:0][4:0][5:0][6:0][7:0]concat=n=7:v=0:a=1[out]"^
>>   -map_metadata 0 -map "[out]"^
>>   -c libmp3lame -compression_level 0^
>>   "c:\Ashra, Correlations [1979].mp4"
> If you want to archive audio, you should use a lossless audio codec, which libmp3lame definitely isn't!

Yes, I've 'heard' -- :-) -- that. I thought that flac was just a hobby encoder until I was told that 
a specification now exits and that the US Library of Congress is using flac.

> What's the origin of these 7 WAV-files and the chapter-file?

A CD I own -- one of about 1500 CDs. I made the chapter file myself.

> Did you rip the WAV-files yourself from 
> a CD? If so, with Exact Audio Copy (EAC) by any chance?

No, I used CDcopy. I used EAC about 20 years ago for a series of audience concert recordings by a 
well known German electronic band.

> As your intention is to archive this album to one single file, I would highly recommend you...
> 1) Rip the CD to one single WAV-file...

Done.

> 2) I personally use TAK for audio archival, but please consult 
> https://hydrogenaudio.org/index.php/topic,126205.0.html for you lossless audio format of choice.

I also want to be able to play the rip, with visible track titles, so I want to choose a method 
that's widely supported by players -- my car player for example. (I chose mp4 with chapters because 
that's what I know and flac-in-mp4 can be played by any video player.) I came to ffmpeg-user to 
learn of a better way, a way that can be played by any multimedia player.

> 3) Let the ripper simultaneously generate a CUE-sheet. This is the recommended way to tag the 
> archived audio. Chapters are for video-files and the MP4-container is not meant for audio only.
> 4) I can't remember if Exact Audio Copy was capable of directly tagging the resulting single 
> audio-file with the CUE-sheet, because it's been quite some years since I last used the ripper, but 
> otherwise I'd use Mp3Tag (https://www.mp3tag.de/en/). With it you can add the CUE-sheet afterwards, 
> or even cover-art and all sorts of tags if you want.
> 
> If you only have those 7 WAV-files, then you could use FFmpeg for concatenating and compressing 
> (except for TAK), but the tagging I would leave to Mp3Tag.
> 
> ffmpeg -i c:\01.WAV [...] -i c:\07.WAV -filter_complex 
> "[0:0][1:0][2:0][3:0][4:0][5:0][6:0]concat=n=7:v=0:a=1" -compression_level 12 "c:\Ashra, 
> Correlations [1979].flac" > ffmpeg -i c:\01.WAV [...] -i c:\07.WAV -filter_complex
> "[0:0][1:0][2:0][3:0][4:0][5:0][6:0]concat=n=7:v=0:a=1" -compression_level 12 "c:\Ashra, 
> Correlations [1979].wv"
> ffmpeg -i c:\01.WAV [...] -i c:\07.WAV -filter_complex 
> "[0:0][1:0][2:0][3:0][4:0][5:0][6:0]concat=n=7:v=0:a=1" -f wav - | Takc.exe -e -pMax -ihs - 
> "c:\Ashra, Correlations [1979].tak"

I doubt that my car player, for example, will play any of those.