Once you've finished converting your cassettes to mp3 and downloading is complete there are several options for how to approach burning your cassette data to a CD. If you have itunes or Windows Media Player you already have what you need to proceed. Read below for simple steps to burn your mp3s to CD with itunes or Windows Media Player. If you don't have itunes or winamp you can download them at the links below or choose from a list below.
Free CD burning software.
Itunes
Windows Media Player
- Open up the \"iTunes\" application on your computer system. On the left side of the screen, double-click on \"playlist.\" Note: If you have not set up a playlist yet, just go to \"File,\" click on the words \"New Playlist,\" and you will see a blank box that says, \"Untitled Playlist.\" Afterward, you can create a name for your playlist and also drag and drop the songs into the new playlist using your mouse.
- Next find a blank CD-R to put in the CD drive, go to \"File,\" then select \"Burn CD Into Playlist.\" It may take a few moments for the disk to be read--you will notice it when it says, \"Checking Playlist.\" Depending on how many songs are on the CD, it may take anywhere from 1 to 5 minutes for audio songs to be copied onto the disk.
- After the process is completed, your songs are now in CD format, and you will be able to play them on a CD player.
Burn MP3s to CD using Windows Media Player
If you want to make a standard music CD that will play in nearly any CD player, choose the Audio CD option.
As you burn an audio CD, Windows Media Player makes temporary copies of the WMA and MP3 files in your burn list, converts the copies to another format (known as PCM), and then saves the copies to the disc.
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Click the Burn tab, click the arrow below the Burn tab, and then click Audio CD (this is the default choice).
Selecting the "Audio CD" burn option -
Insert a blank CD-R disc into your CD burner.
If the AutoPlay dialog box appears, close it.
If your computer has two CD burners, click the Next Drive link to switch to the burner you want to use.
If the Player doesn't recognize that you've inserted a disc or that you have a burner, see Burn a CD or DVD: frequently asked questions.
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If necessary, click the Clear List pane button
to remove all items from the previous burn list. -
Find the items in your library that you want to copy to the audio CD.
For example, you can search for a particular album, browse for individual songs from different albums, or locate a playlist that you created previously.
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To create a burn list, drag items from the Details pane (the pane in the middle of the library) to the List pane (the pane on the right side of the library).
Dragging items from the library to a burn list -
If you want to change the order of the songs in the burn list, drag a song up or down in the list.
Dragging an item to a lower position in a burn list -
If you want to remove a song from the burn list, right-click the song, and then click Remove from List.
Don't worry: removing a song from the burn list does not delete it from your library or computer.
Removing an item from a burn list -
When you're satisfied with the list, click Start Burn.
Burning a disc might take several minutes to complete.
If you have more songs in your burn list than will fit on one audio CD, you'll have the option to burn the remaining items to a second blank CD.
Even though common applications such as iTunes and Windows Media Player are able to burn music to CD, you will have probably discovered that most are very limited on what they can do. Using a dedicated burning program gives you the flexibility to burn music, video, and other types of files to CD, DVD, and even Blu-ray; this can open up a lot more possibilities on the way you use and store your digital media. The software listed below has been selected specifically for its usefulness and ease-of-use when dealing with digital media.
1. CDBurnerXP Pro 4
CDBurnerXP has very good support for burning music to CD as either an audio CD, or a data CD (MP3, AAC, OGG, etc.). If can be installed on Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista and offers a user-friendly interface. You can create audio CDs using MP3, OGG, FLAC, WMA, and WAV files. A neat feature of CDBurnerXP is the facility to directly add tracks to your compilation from audio CDs without having to rip the tracks first. Finally, this free CD burning program also comes with a convenient integrated audio player in order to play your music.
2. Ashampoo Burning Studio Free 6.75
Even though Burning Studio Free only supports MP3 and WMA formats, it more than makes up for this shortfall by its sizable feature set. This free burning program supports CD, DVD, and Blu-ray drives giving you flexible storage options. It's intuitive interface gives you access to tasks such as ripping and burning audio/data CDs, backup files and folders, burn movies, create ISO/BIN images, and a copier for duplicating CDs,DVDs, and Blu-ray discs.
3. Express Burn 4
Available for the Mac and PC, Express Burn is a CD authoring program that supports a wide array of audio formats. This light-weight, but functional program supports MP3, WMA, FLAC, AAC, WAV, AU, RA, AIFF, and a few other obscure audio formats like .RAW and .AMR, etc. The program is also capable of copying data CDs, burning seamless audio tracks, and more.
4. FinalBurner Free
FinalBurner Free enables you to create data/audio CDs, video DVDs, and make ISO images. There's also a built-in CD ripper that is capable of encoding MP3 and WMA files in varying bitrates. FinalBurner has good file format support when creating audio CDs. You can import MP3, WMA, OGG, WAV, AAC, along with less popular formats like MID, and music modules (XM, MOD) that are used in music sequencers (trackers). As with all the burning programs in this article, FinalBurner has enough options to be a good substitute for expensive products such as Nero, etc.
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5. Free Audio CD Burner
If you just want a simple program to create audio CDs then you won't go far wrong with Free Audio CD Burner. Even though it only supports the writing of CDs, it can decode MP3 and WMA files in realtime, thus saving time and hard drive space.