Compiling Audio CDs from MP3 Files

Did you know that storing your collection of MP3 files on your computer could be rather risky? Think about it- if your computer crashes, you will lose all those files that took you so long to collect. Much like you back up other important data, you should consider backing up your MP3 files too. One of the safest ways to do this is to convert all your files into audio CDs.

This can be done simply by building up your playlist of MP3 files and burning an audio CD using any regular CD burning software. The MP3 files need to be converted into Compact Disc Audio (CDA) files before burning. Some CD burning programs such as Nero do the conversion automatically behind the scenes. But if you want to have it customized you could a simple audio editor, which will allow you the extra facility of splitting the files and also applying filters for stereo widening, equalization and noise reduction.

However, if these features are not present in your CD burning software, you will need to use dedicated audio editing software prior to burning your CDs.

Of all the editing functions available, being able to normalize your files is the most useful when you are getting your MP3 files ready for burning. This evens out the differences that may be present between the volumes in different tracks and ensures that your compiled CD will play at the same volume throughout. When you are done editing your MP3 files, you then save them as WAV files so that they are ready to be burned on to CD.

You can burn your MP3s directly on to a CD using the native MP3 format itself. There is no need to convert MP3s to audio CDs. This allows you to store as much as 100 songs or more on one CD as compared to the normal 10-song capacity. Moreover, you can play your MP3 CDs on a DVD player as well as your computer CD –ROM.

One of the major drawbacks of an MP3 CD is that, with such a long list of songs featured on one disc itself, finding any one song in particular could prove to be rather overwhelming. Playing them on a hardware CD player that is non-portable makes things even wore as these players typically do not have a display.

Instead, you should play your MP3s on a DVD player that is connected to your home theatre system. DVD players are capable of playing MP3 CDs and the contents are displayed on the TV set. The only restriction here is that you can only use 8 characters for the filenames, so you will have to get your MP3s organized prior to burning them onto CDs.

Categorizing your songs and putting them into separate folders is a convenient way of doing this. You could perhaps keep a separate folder for each artist and put the songs in accordingly. When naming MP3 files you need to make sure the names of the files begin with the song names and not the artist names, or else the files tend to be displayed with the same name, only adding to your confusion. There is software available, which can help you with renaming your MP3 files.