Creating Audio CDs from mp3 files

Here is the goal...

You have some .mp3 audio files on your hard drive
and you want to create an audio cd from those files
that you can listen to in a regular CD player.

No problem.

Remember... Please follow copyright law and rules when working with digital audio files.

There are many many ways to handle this. I will focus on the
way that I like to do it. I know it works ...and it works great
for me. If you are interested in exploring other means of reaching
the same end, check out some of the other software available. A great
source is mp3.com's software section.

First of all... mp3 files will not play on a regular CD player.
The files must be converted to .wav files. The program I like to use
to do this is Winamp. You will need to configure Winamp
specially to do this. It's very simple.

Create a directory on your hard drive called cd.

   i.e.   c:\cd

Start up Winamp and go to Preferences.

In the I/O section of Preferences choose Disk Writer Plug In (OUT_DISK.DLL).

Click on Configure.

Choose the destination directory as c:\cd.


Now you need to create a playlist in Winamp. Using Winamp's playlist
editor, you can easily control the length of the playlist. Try to keep it
below 73 minutes (1:13) to be safe.

Make sure that you do not have Repeat or Shuffle turned on.

Now play the playlist. You won't hear anything, because instead of actually
playing the mp3s, Winamp is decompressing them into the directory that you
created.


Now the mp3s have been converted to .wav files. You are ready to record these
audio files onto a CD. I like to use Adaptec Easy CD Creator. Again, there are other
great CD burning applications available, I just happen to be comfortable with this one.

Start up Easy Cd Creator and start creating an audio CD. Browse to the directory on your
hard drive (c:\cd), and select all of the .wav files.

When you go to Record the CD, be sure to tell Easy CD Creator to Close the Disk.

Let it go. You should be all set !!


After recording, be sure to delete the .wav files from your hard drive -- they take up a lot of space.