Question about CD-RW's

I just got a new CD-RW. I’ve finally figured out how to get things downloaded from Napster. Now, how do I convert mp3’s to a format my cd player will play?

Thanks for your help.

Cnet had an artical on htis but I looked and couldn’t find it. You have to convert the mp3 to the cd file format. Your cd-rw might have software to do this. sometimes it’s a 2 step process mp3->wav then wav-> cd format (it has a name but can’t recall it) do a search for mp3 and wav and I’m sure you will find lots of freeware to do it.

Note that there are two types of media you can write to: CD-R and CD-RW. Chances are, you want to write to a CD-R disk for an audio disc, since the vast majority of audio equipment cannot read a CD-RW disc.

Regarding converting the MP3s to CD AUDIO, a lot of CD-burning software will do this automatically. The software that came with my HP CD burner can. I’m also fairly sure that later versions of Windows Media Player will also do it, but do it slowly.

I bought an external CD-R/W drive a few months ago for exactly the same purpose.

The first step is to convert the MP3 file in a WAV file (so that it looks like, say, “having_my_baby.mp3” to “having_my_baby.wav”). I downloaded a free program from CNET that does this (the name escapes me as I’m at work now, but it was free and it’s sole function was to convert MP3 to WAV). Go to CNET and type in something like “convert WAV” and see what you get.

Run this program, and it should result in two files, the original MP3 and a HUGE WAV file.

After that, you’ll have to follow your drive’s instructions for making an audio disk.

A few lessons learned the hard way:

  1. If you making audio disks, use the cheaper CD-R disks. You can only record on them once, but they’re cheaper than CD-RW disks.

  2. Writing to a disk can be tricky. If it doesn’t work the first time, congratulations, you’ve got a coaster. The disk is useless. I would suggest, at first, not running anything else on the computer when you’re writing to the disk. Don’t risk crashing the program. Make sure that the MP3 to WAV conversion works completely. When I filled up my hard drive, I got the warning signal from the program, but it looked like it had completely translated the file. It turned out it didn’t.

  3. When buying CD-R disks, ignore the ones that say they’re specifically for making music CDs. CD-R is CD-R no matter what. They’re rebranding the disks and upping the price for those who don’t know this. (Memorex does this, although I use their disks. They run about $8-$9 a box of 10 at OfficeMax).

  4. Write up the song list for the case while the disk is burning. It’s paperwork, but it has to be done, else you’ll end up with a stack of discs and you won’t know what’s on ANY of them.

  5. Take care of your CDs. Manufactuers claim they’ll last forever, you can abuse them, leave them out, etc. etc. Nonsense. It’s becoming apparent that CDs will degrade over time, far worse than albums (which uses a mechanical means of reproducing sound), so treat your CDs well.

Good luck. I’ve had a blast with my drive.

pesch

Adaptec’s Toast (for Mac) or Easy CD Creator (for PC) will convert MP3s to audio CD format automatically. Check out Adaptec’s home site for more info, or just pick up the software at your local CompUSA or BestBuy.

While CD-R is a little tricky (pesch gives good advice) you can do it without too much of a problem. I did, and do! Good luck!

My HP, for some reason, will not convert mp3 to cd. I have to convert it to wav myself first. If yours won’t either, and if you want an app that’ll do it for free, I downloaded ultraplayer, which did the trick. But I strongly urge you to use cd-r’s rather than rw’s, since not many machines (cd players) recognize cdrw’s.

here is the cheapest solution. If you are using WinAmp (anyone on Windows has it) then you can use that to do it. Lemme give you some instructions…

  1. Open WinAmp
  2. Go to Options>Preferences (or press Ctrl+P)
  3. In the column on the left, you will see a section called “Plug-ins”
  4. Under that, go to “Output”
  5. Once you do that, the window in the middle will have severeal different Output Plug-ins listed
  6. Select the one that says “Nullsoft Disk Writer plug-in”
  7. After selected, press the Configure button
  8. A Windows explorer-style window will pop up, and all you have to do is tell it what directory you want the WAVs to be saved under
  9. Then, hit the CLOSE button in the Preferences, and you will be back in the normal WinAmp player.
  10. Make sure that the “repeat song” option is OFF and just press play. The total process for each song will only take a few seconds, and it goes much faster than expected.
  11. After you have converted all the songs you want, make sure that you go back to the Options>Preferences>Plug-ins>Output and change it back to either “waveOut plug-in”, or “DirectSound plug-in”
  12. If you have any questions, email me (Evnglion@hotmail.com) or get with me on AIM (NGEvnglion).

I tired to write that with as easy-to follow instructions as I could…good luck :wink:

I’m not sure where you want to listen to your music, but as an option I also present the way I did things. We have a good sound system on our computer, and decided just to leave our music as MP-3’s. I can fit about 150 songs on one disc that way. My SO takes his MP-3 cd to work and listens to it while he works on the computer.

Obviously, this is only an option if you plan on listening to cd’s while working on the computer. However, I do now have all of my music on cd, and can create a wav format cd from them anytime I want to. It is a good way of backing up your music without using a billion discs to do it.

Did your CD-RW drive come with any software that will convert your files? Mine came with the aforementioned Adaptec Easy CD Creator (which I didn’t have to use to make my MP-3 cd’s - I just dragged and dropped).

pesch already mentioned the rest of my suggestions. Allow me to emphasize a couple of his suggestions. Do not have anything else running on your computer while you do this. CD-RW’s cannot be read by a CD player, so use the CD-R’s.

Suggested links:

How to convert mp3 to wav - with our without a mp3 to wav converter

Webmonkey’s Tips

A discussion on converting MP-3’s

Actually, this is no longer the case. There are quite a few portable CD players that will read mp3s directly off of a CD-R. There are a lot available here and at http://www.amazon.com . There are also in-dash versions of these that are permanetly built into your car