Recommendation on software?

I have just ripped an audio book from CD to MP3 format. The problem is that I end up with about 60 small (5 to 8 minute) files. I would like to combine 5 or 6 of these small files into one. Does anyone know of a Windoze program that will join like that?
Thanks!

MP3s don't join natively. (Well, I suppose they do, but it's not tidy.) Any program that claims to do so is almost certainly going to convert them to waveforms, concatenate them, and convert that back into MP3. Which is not what you want. The best way to do it would be to rerip the CD into WAV files that are a more appropriate length for you, then manually convert those WAV files into MP3s. How to do the first part of that depends on your ripper, and may not be possible with the specific program you're using.

Just thinking out loud, but couldn't you concatenate several files together? I assume because they're audio books a tiny gap will probably not matter. I assume if you remove any ID3 tags the files would join quite easily. I could do it in linux with the cat command, I assume there must be some windows freeware that would do the same.

I agree with you, but with a talking book, given that each track is unlikely to stop in the middle of a sentence, unlike seamlessly trying to join up a live music album, you're not going to hear the difference.
I've done this quite extensively on "This Sceptered Isle" to make listening more palatable. I'm sure, as you say, hundreds of programs exist, but I found Audiotools, very easy to use.

Quote:
Does anyone know of a Windoze program that will join like that?

Yes. To join MP3 files together, you simply concatenate them using the DOS copy command.

Here is how to do it.

1. STRIP COMPLETELY all tags from all files. Don't just turn the tags into spaces, you must strip the tags. In Winamp, this is done by unchecking the boxes on the tag-editing screen so that all fields turn gray, then applying that change to the file. Or you could use MP3 tag studio's feature for stripping tags.

2. Name the files something simple and easy so that it's easy to put them on the command line in order. For example "01.mp3", "02.mp3" etc.

3. Put all the files in the same folder.

4. Get a DOS prompt going in that folder.

5. copy /B 01.mp3 + 02.mp3 + 03.mp3 + 04.mp3 + 05.mp3 finishedfile.mp3

(The /B on the copy command is critical.)

6. If the original files were constant-bit-rate files, you're done. If the files were variable-bit-rate files, you must now use a VBR repair tool upon the finished file so that it time-indexes properly.

7. Check and tag the finished file.