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

[Reino Wijnsma]

Hello Mark,

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!

What's the origin of these 7 WAV-files and the chapter-file? Did you rip 
the WAV-files yourself from a CD? If so, with Exact Audio Copy (EAC) by 
any chance?
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 (if you actually have the CD). Or 
if your ripper supports it, skip the WAV-file and directly rip to FLAC, 
WV, or TAK.
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.
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"

(-map_metadata 0 is unnecessary, because WAV doesn't support tags)

-- 
Reino