Turn MP3's into CD's |
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To do this you will need:
The first thing to do is to download all of the MP3 files. Use your download manager to schedule downloads, resume broken downloads, etc. This step can be done without a download manager but it makes it easier. Some leading download managers are GetRight and GoZilla.
Once all of the files are downloaded, rename them to include in the name the track number as a 2 digit number. Include this in the beginning of the name so that sorting by filename will put them in the correct order. Now either use the spreadsheet or calculator to do the math when you try to figure out which tracks will go on which disc. Use the MP3 player to preview the music files. Make sure the beginning and end are not in the middle of songs, that the tracks were cut in the right place. Also, note which songs, if any should not begin or end a disc (there is almost no pause between songs.) Also, use the MP3 player to geet the track times. Use the track times to figure out how many tracks can be placed on each disc. What you want to do is to have discs of approximately equal length and as few as possible. Using the spreadsheet here is very good because you can set up equationns between cells so that you move the break between discs and everything is recalculated.
Now that you have selected which tracks will appear on which disc, separate the MP3's into separate directories called Disc1, Disc2, etc. Now, you will work on each disc individually. Use the MP3 to Wave converter to convert the MP3 files. The wave files will be a lot larger. MP3 is a compressed file format. Most converters will produce wave files with the same name and .wav extension.
The next step is to edit the wave files. You are probably tempted to skip this step. You say to yourself, "These sound fine, I don't have to do any editing." So you skip this step and you burn the CD's and you get clicks between tracks. Well, here's why. Wave files are just a list of sound samples with some formatting. The samples are based on 16 bits per channel with two channels (left and right) which means four bytes per sample. CD's are based on sectors. There are 2352 bytes per sector or 588 four byte samples. (There are 75 sectors per second.) When you burn a CD, it only burns whole sectors. So any partial sectors, it burns and then inserts samples with a zero value. The zero value is absolute silence. When you listen to a live show, there is always some light crowd noise or hiss or faint whatever that tells you that the CD is still playing. When you have a tiny part that goes from quiet hum to absolute quiet and then to quiet hum in the space of less than 1/75 of a second, it will sound like a pop or click.
To avoid the clicks and pops, follow this procedure. Load the first wave file into the wave editor. Your wave editor should allow you to select on CD sector boundaries. Select the last partial sector, cut it off the file, save the file and then paste this small (587 samples or less) clip to the beginning of the next file. Then repeat, clipping the end of this file, pasting it to the next. Repeat until the last track which does not have to be clipped at the end. Now, all of your wave files (except the last one) should have a length of a multiple of 588 samples. You may also want to change the volume on these files. I find that the volume levels are too low. You should test and experiment (save off to a safe place, in case you can't undo) by changing the volume in one area of a file and playing that area, and then playing a commercial CD without changing the volume settings on your PC. You may want to use a volume shaper like Amplify, which will make the loud parts louder without drasticly amplifying the soft parts, ie, crowd noise, hum, etc. If you do change the volume, be sure to do the same thing to each file. If you don't, you may get clicks at the borders of tracks when the volume jumps up or down. The last step is to use your wave editor to put a fade-in at the beginning of the first track and fade-out at the end of the last track. Do this after you change the volume.
Now, you are ready to burn. Use your CD burner program to select the wave files you so painstakingly edited in the previous step. Burn to the CD using Disc At Once (DAO). If you don't use this setting, you will have 2 second gaps between tracks and you'll be wasting all of the effort you did to make sure the tracks are sector sized properly.
If you have problems burning your CD, there are several things you can do. Check your media. Use high quality media. Check to see if it supports burning at the speed you are trying. Try using a slower speed. Clean up your hard drive. Make sure you have as much space as possible on your hard drive. Defragment the drive. Past that, you may have to contact the author of your CDR burning program or the manufacturer of your CD burner.
GOOD LUCK!
If you have any questions, compliments, complaints or suggestions regarding this page, please email me at danny_pav@hotmail.com.