Large file concatenation

[GTBecker]

Rather than try to concatenate a series of .wavs by "a"-suffixed filenames, e.g.
Record_2017_Jun_27_221713.832_2.wav
Record_2017_Jun_27_221713.832_2a.wav
Record_2017_Jun_27_221713.832_2aa.wav
Record_2017_Jun_27_221713.832_2aaa.wav
... etc.,

Linux ls command switches permit listing files in time-of-last-modification (in this case, the time of creation) sequence, newest first; reversing that produces the correct sequence to concatenate, so this CLI command will yield a proper .flac of the wavs in the current folder:

Code:

sox $(ls -lcrt *.wav | sed -n "s/.*:..//p") -C5 outfile.flac

I tested this with a 7.5-hour 192kHz 24-bit stereo recording:

-rwxr----- 1 gtbecker gtbecker  2097395348 Jul  4 22:58 Record_2017_Jul_04_142431.014_1.wav
-rwxr----- 1 gtbecker gtbecker  2097394448 Jul  4 23:00 Record_2017_Jul_04_142431.014_1a.wav
-rwxr----- 1 gtbecker gtbecker  2097394334 Jul  4 23:01 Record_2017_Jul_04_142431.014_1aa.wav
-rwxr----- 1 gtbecker gtbecker  2097394298 Jul  4 23:02 Record_2017_Jul_04_142431.014_1aaa.wav
-rwxr----- 1 gtbecker gtbecker  2097394292 Jul  4 23:04 Record_2017_Jul_04_142431.014_1aaaa.wav
-rwxr----- 1 gtbecker gtbecker  2097394400 Jul  4 23:05 Record_2017_Jul_04_142431.014_1aaaaa.wav
-rwxr----- 1 gtbecker gtbecker  2097394520 Jul  4 23:06 Record_2017_Jul_04_142431.014_1aaaaaa.wav
-rwxr----- 1 gtbecker gtbecker  2097394532 Jul  4 23:08 Record_2017_Jul_04_142431.014_1aaaaaaa.wav
-rwxr----- 1 gtbecker gtbecker  2097394538 Jul  4 23:09 Record_2017_Jul_04_142431.014_1aaaaaaaa.wav
-rwxr----- 1 gtbecker gtbecker  2097394532 Jul  4 23:11 Record_2017_Jul_04_142431.014_1aaaaaaaaa.wav
-rwxr----- 1 gtbecker gtbecker  2097394532 Jul  4 23:12 Record_2017_Jul_04_142431.014_1aaaaaaaaaa.wav
-rwxr----- 1 gtbecker gtbecker  2097394514 Jul  4 23:13 Record_2017_Jul_04_142431.014_1aaaaaaaaaaa.wav
-rwxr----- 1 gtbecker gtbecker  2097394538 Jul  4 23:15 Record_2017_Jul_04_142431.014_1aaaaaaaaaaaa.wav
-rwxr----- 1 gtbecker gtbecker  2097394550 Jul  4 23:16 Record_2017_Jul_04_142431.014_1aaaaaaaaaaaaa.wav
-rwxr----- 1 gtbecker gtbecker  2097394592 Jul  4 23:17 Record_2017_Jul_04_142431.014_1aaaaaaaaaaaaaa.wav
-rwxr----- 1 gtbecker gtbecker   456523776 Jul  4 23:18 Record_2017_Jul_04_142431.014_1aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.wav
-rw-r--r-- 1 gtbecker gtbecker 20604433119 Jul  5 15:49 outfile1.flac

The 20.6GB flac (of 32GB of wavs) can then be loaded in Audacity for editing.

One complication arises for multitrack recordings like 4-channel which USB Audio Recorder PRO creates as two stereo pairs.  The first two tracks' (first stereo pair) filename contains a "1" before the "a"s; the second pair contains "2"; both files have the same timestamp.  The sox command above will require separating them into two folders, lest the four tracks become one stereo flac of interspersed files.  I'll work on that.