Making music CD that will play in the car

[nameless53]

sorry, im stupid.. another question

you said

"The burner will convert them back to .wmv when it burns so making them .mp3s is just a waste of time."

does that mean it burns it on the cd as .wav?

im wondering because i might have to reduce the size of the total song files...
i have 13mb over the cd size...

so unless it burns it on to the cd as a lower size... then i need to take out a song or replace it.
another thing is that is there a way to KNOW for a fact how much space the song burned is going to take?
assuming of course it doesnt burn it in wav form.. or after some editing of quality which might increase size ect.

 

[sourboy]

Burn in wav format, but you will have to crop a few songs off to get it under 700mb. Keep in mind that there's gaps between tracks, so you're best a tad under - or it won't be able to close the burn. 700mb usually equals 80 minutes of play time. I usually max at 76 or 77 to avoid problems.

If you know your stereo handles mp3's - use that instead. The size difference is about 5 to 1. That means instead of 16 songs in wav format, you can have 80 songs in mp3 format. It's kinda nice to have entire collections on one CD rather then separate CD's for each album.

Normalize volume (it's called different things) is usually bad. You ever heard a song where it's really quiet, but maybe has a loud chorus? Radio stations adjust the volume by raising it when quiet, and lowering it when loud - so as to have a common -steady volume level. That's what this option does. I have found it to be horrible in some cases, and little improvement in most - so I would recommend not using it.

Burn at a level or two below your CD burner's max to be safe, but it should be able to handle it without problems. I usually reboot before burning - and I never do anything else on the computer when it's burning - because if your computer hesitates, it could cause a recording skip on the disk. It's rare, but safe precaution for a few minutes of patience.

Use the recommended quality, but I think norm is 44,100 Hz? 16 bit is fine. Go stereo over mono if you have an option, but it should default too.

If you're a tiny bit over max disk size, windows comes with an audio recorder program that will alter wav files. It's slow and clumsy, but it allows you to cut off the beginning or end (or middle) of a file - in case there's dead air. Doesn't hurt if you are sooo close to getting all songs to fit and you don't want to sacrifice one.

 

[blindside]

A music cd will not hold 700 mb of mp3s. It will hold maybe 10-15, three to four minute songs.

 

[sourboy]

98% of audio players can read wav files, so windows media will recognize it and may play it as a wma (never tried it), but it will work regardless. Main point is your car stereo or home stereo - in which case wav files are the most common.

I have yet to see a burning program not show total size somewhere on the setup screen, but I know Adaptec has a nice visual. If you use a free program, check the bottom of the window for a status bar. Most have one and will tell you the totals of the files you have selected (to be burned). Disks are cheap though, so it's not a big deal if you waste one. I've lost a few over the years trying things out.

 

[sourboy]

A music cd will not hold 700 mb of mp3s. It will hold maybe 10-15, three to four minute songs.

Wrong, MP3's are about 1/5 the size of wav files. You are thinking of wav files - most CD's only hold 15 or so 3-4 minute songs. I just pulled up my burning program and selected an entire folder of MP3's. 53 MP3's totaled 3 hours, 53 minutes or 209 MB. The disk is about 30% full. I could fit about 150 MP3's of similar sized songs on this 700MB CD.

 

[nameless53]

ill try to cut off some of the gaps with sound recorder...
basicly i need to cut more than a minute out of all my songs for about 13 mb.

i really dont know if my stereo in my car can read mp3, but since i hope it can apply in almost all cars i drive i better record in wav.

my songs total 1:10:58 right now.
its 715mb and disk is 702mb.

the only place the size is shown on the burn section is each individual song.
so if its in mp3 format, it will say 3mb but it will burn for like 30 im assuming... thats why i asked for a way to find out if it will all fit on the disk.. once burned on there ...

so i have no clue how many i can really fit.



ok, the setting is

dont use auto volume leveling
let quality be automated (recomended)
speed ill just do about 16x max or 1x.. though im not sure how fast is 1x?

 

[PantheraTigris2]

sourboy, you must a have a bunch of low quality songs, then, because I have some .mp3 songs that are up to 30 megs in size. You can easily tell by the bit rate (quality) - about how large an mp3 file is going to be. And to me, personally, high quality is very important.

 

[sourboy]

sourboy, you must a have a bunch of low quality songs, then, because I have some .mp3 songs that are up to 30 megs in size. You can easily tell by the bit rate (quality) - about how large an mp3 file is going to be. And to me, personally, high quality is very important.

I always have max quality on my MP3's - maybe there's another factor. Sure the sizes are much larger then normal, but I still can fit 150 MP3's on a single disk. Keep in mind though, that I burn in wav format at about 15 songs per disk.

ill try to cut off some of the gaps with sound recorder...
basicly i need to cut more than a minute out of all my songs for about 13 mb.

my songs total 1:10:58 right now.
its 715mb and disk is 702mb.

dont use auto volume leveling
let quality be automated (recomended)
speed ill just do about 16x max or 1x.. though im not sure how fast is 1x?

Don't bother cutting gaps if you have to cut that much. However, most 700mb CD's hold 80 minutes of music. If you're at 70:58 - you may be reading it wrong or you have extremely high quality of songs.

Don't burn at 1x, that takes like 30 minutes. If you max at 16, try maybe 12 or something (not sure what you have to choose from).

 

[nameless53]

i have 20 music files
715 total mb
1 hr 10 min 53 seconds

... thats what it says so i dont know wheather its wrong.
ive started cutting about some seconds off and saved a mb. already, but i guess i just stop now.

if its at 19 songs, then its at 687mb and ... -3 minutes about...

the burn speed options are as follows


fastest (as the text)
48x
32x
16x
8x
4x
2x
1x

so... which one should i pick?


so its no vol. leveling
recomended (automatic) quality
and take one song out (or replace with something with fitting size)
and speed for you to decide which is best.

thanks for all your help. im going to hang a little longer but im going to get some sleep soon.

almost 3am.

 

[sourboy]

Probably high quality files - which is never bad. Drop below 700 MB and you're fine. One more thing I always do before burning (other then listening to all the songs to make sure there are no skips - especially ones that were downloaded) is making sure all the songs are close in volume. I load Winamp and play each song (jump to the chorus usually) and make sure they all are ballpark. There's nothing worse then having a quiet song (and I don't mean a slow song, but one that was just recorded at a lower level) that forces you to crank the volume on your stereo - then get your ears blasted when the next song comes in at normal volume with your stereo volume still up high. Usually they are close enough, but it doesn't hurt to check. IF you need to lower or raise the volume of a song, that same windows audio recorder program can do it.

As for burn speed, I think mine's at 4x or 6x, and it takes maybe 10 minutes to do a full disk. 16x only takes like 2-3 minutes, so it's really a matter of patience. I've had friends who have newer burners go at 52x and have the burn finish in a minute - with no errors.

Seriously, it's good to ask these questions, but burners are pretty fool-proof and they've been out for a while - so they're only better. I worried about it my first few burns, and still do in some ways - but the only disks that came out bad were one's that I tried to cram the disk to the max. I'm talking like 3 bad disks out of hundreds. Just burn it and go, you'll be fine.

 

[nameless53]

Drop below 700 MB and you're fine

with the gaps cut out as soon as there was no sound... i only saved 5 mb.

so i just took out one of the songs that had a remix of it (i like the remix)
i do have room for the 11mb filler music in place.

im going to try to get it burned today and then test it in cars and stereo.

other then listening to all the songs to make sure there are no skips - especially ones that were downloaded) is making sure all the songs are close in volume.

there is a song with a skip but its how the music came as... cant fix it (infact i used the sound recorder to edit out the messed up begining... which just starts off repeating the same rythem so i just shortened that part)
other than that if the volume is on max, some songs you can hear static(ky) sounds when the dude is singing...
so much for high quality >.<
im listening to it right now to make sure the volumes are constant.
i was afraid auto-vol. leveling was going to do something like make it all smaller volume (i want it LOUD... then ill use the volume knob and make it louder! goal? wake up my mean neighbors... jk )

As for burn speed, I think mine's at 4x or 6x, and it takes maybe 10 minutes to do a full disk. 16x only takes like 2-3 minutes, so it's really a matter of patience. I've had friends who have newer burners go at 52x and have the burn finish in a minute - with no errors.

ill use 8x, its between my orginal 16x and ur 6x
is it 10 min per song!? or total?
heck i can wait 15-20 min total but im worried about "computer" lag and stuff that you said might make it skip! ect.

I worried about it my first few burns, and still do in some ways - but the only disks that came out bad were one's that I tried to cram the disk to the max. I'm talking like 3 bad disks out of hundreds. Just burn it and go, you'll be fine.

im always worried at trying new things.. it got worse when i tried to research it myself. im paranoid... anyway, my file size at 19 songs without that filler is about 685 mb. +11.7 or so is the filler music for the "NO MORE SONGs are left end theme..." if i add that (stupid i know... but i dont like odd numbers of tracks... and i dont want to take anymore out )
but ill see what you say on should i leave it out.

 

[Dease]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but, In my experience the actual file size of songs doesn't matter at all when burning a music CD. Rather, the amount of minutes matters, for example I can't burn 85 minutes of music on a 700mb (80min) cd since the burner determines the amount of space it takes up on the CD by the # of minutes since it records in its own format.

 

[Dell19]

is it 10 min per song!? or total?
heck i can wait 15-20 min total but im worried about "computer" lag and stuff that you said might make it skip! ect.

10 minutes for the whole thing...

 

[nameless53]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but, In my experience the actual file size of songs doesn't matter at all when burning a music CD. Rather, the amount of minutes matters, for example I can't burn 85 minutes of music on a 700mb (80min) cd since the burner determines the amount of space it takes up on the CD by the # of minutes since it records in its own format.

i hope this is true to some extent..

i do plan/wish to add 4 or 3 songs more.
can someone confirm this?


@del

thanks, 10 min isnt bad then, even at say 2x or 4x or maybe 1x

question:

can i burn new songs on to a previously burned disk? (burn a new song if there is room or time)