How to Make a CD. Now there are two options to burning a CD: MP3 or CDA.

Transcription

1 How to Make a CD There are many different CD burning programs out there. I looked and looked for a good free CD burning program that was easy to use, and would also make MP3 CDs. The one I settled on is a nice free little program called Ashampoo Burning Studio 6 Free. It works with Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7, and 8. It's a bit difficult to find this free version to download so use the link in the PDF "--- About these files and several others ---" in my Software folder, and read the info about bundled software at the beginning so you don't install any extras you don't want. Now there are two options to burning a CD: MP3 or CDA. CDA (normally called Audio CD or Standard CD) is the typical CD format that CD's come in. If you go and buy a music CD at the store, it is in the CDA format and can play in any CD player or even in DVD players. The drawback is that you can only fit up to 80 minutes of audio on a CD using the CDA format. MP3 on the other hand is a great format because you can fit about 12 hours of music or about 25 hours of speech on one CD. The drawback to MP3 CD's is that many people do not have the ability to play MP3 formatted CD's. Though many newer DVD players and a few portable CD players can play MP3 CD s, most cannot. Every computer can play MP3 CD's, but not everyone has a computer, or wants to listen to the CD on their computer. (Regarding CD players: Don t confuse MP3 auxiliary inputs with the ability to play MP3 CD s. They are for plugging in an MP3 player like an ipod.) After you have installed Ashampoo double-click the icon on your desktop and Ashampoo should open. (These images are from an older version but the new one works the same.) 1

2 Click, or hover your mouse, over the third option down: Burn or Rip Music. That will open up a second window. If you want to burn a regular CD, click the first option in this new window: Create an Audio CD If you want to burn an MP3 CD, click the second option that says: Create an MP3 CD The Weekly Audio file I make is longer than 80 minutes, so it will not fit on one CDA CD, but it will fit easily on one MP3 CD. If the recipient of the Weekly Audio file can play MP3 CD's then you can just burn one MP3 CD for them. If they cannot play MP3 CD s you will have to burn two CD's. (Unless they are very sure that they can play MP3 CD's I would make them two CDA CD's to be on the safe side.) (If you have a CD with audio already on it that you want to copy to your computer's hard drive click the fifth option: Rip an Audio CD ) 2

3 Clicking the first option (Create an Audio CD) will open this window: 3

4 Clicking the second option (Create an MP3 CD ) will open this window: 4

5 Next you add the audio files you want to burn onto a CD. The easiest way is to drag and drop the file into the main window. As you can see, the talk that I dropped into Ashampoo is 79 minutes and 18 seconds long. (Remember, a regular audio CD cannot hold more than 80 minutes.) The blue bar at the bottom shows it is almost filled to the maximum. You can drag and drop multiple audio files into Ashampoo at one time, as long as their total play time does not exceed 80 minutes. To put the Weekly Audio file on two CD s highlight about the first half of the audio files and drag and drop them into the Ashampoo window. If they exceed the 80 minutes, just click on the last file to highlight it and then click on the button on the right that says Remove. If you still have more than 80 minutes of audio, continue clicking the last file and removing it until the total time drops below 80 minutes. If the total falls well below 80 minutes, just keep dragging and dropping more audio files (in order) into Ashampoo until it gets somewhat close to 80 minutes. (It best to leave a bit of space at the end than to fill it all the way up.) Before you burn the Weekly Audio file, check to make sure the files are in the right order. If they are not, click the Track tab to reorder the tacks into the proper order. If that click inverts the order (321) just click Track again to re-invert the order (123). 5

6 Next, click the button on the bottom right that says Next. Then it will ask for a blank CD to be put in. Put in a blank CD, and then click the button that says Write in the bottom right corner. 6

7 After a couple of minutes the CD will be done, you will see this window, and the CD drawer should open automatically. Click the OK in the center. 7

8 If you are done burning CDs, click Exit at the bottom right. If you want to burn another CD with the same audio, click the words Write same CD again If you want to burn another CD with different audio, click the words Go back to the main menu and start over. If you use are using a different CD authoring program the steps should be similar to these. If you have any trouble, feel free to contact me. da.getmyip@gmail.com Happy burning. 8