Creating an Audio CD in 11 Easy Steps…
This week, my friend Erin and I had a brief discussion about how to use Public Domain materials to create audio CD’s…
Erin asked a great question…
I think my local market would be ripe for some Old Time Radio shows and I was wondering … do I simply download the mp3 files of the radio show then run it through itunes to create and audio cd that will play on any cd player (rather than a computer?).
To which some well-meaning yet somewhat dim-witted fellow (me) replied…
This is a great question and I love the idea. Old Time Radio shows are a personal favorite of mine and I love projects that involve them.
With regards to downloading mp3 files and than using them to create cd’s that will play on any standard cd player (as opposed to offering them in MP3 format)…
I’m not sure about iTunes. I usually use Roxio Easy Media Creator for that sort of thing. I know many of our readers use a simple program called CDBurnerXP.
It does a great job of creating standard audio cd’s from mp3’s and it’s very simple to use – just import your mp3 tracks and burn after telling the program you want to create an audio cd.
I think I’ll do a tutorial on this subject for this week’s PDTH update.
I don’t think we’ve ever really covered this particular topic in detail before so here goes…
We’re going to create a “Master CD” of our new audio product.
To do the job, we’re going to download a free copy of CDBurnerXP (that way nobody has an excuse for not doing this) and we’re going to use it to burn our Master copy of an audio CD…
1) Download your free copy of CDBurnerXP at the link below…
Download Instructions: Right-Click the link below and select either “save target as” or “save link as” depending on what browser you are using.
Right Click Here To Download “CDBurnerXP” Now…
2) Install the program on your machine (sorry, Windows only).
3) Crank up the CDBurnerXP application and double-click on the “Audio Disc” selection as shown below…
4) You’ll be shown the contents of your computer in the top half of the screen – drill down to the location of your file(s) as shown below.
In this example I am going to create an audio CD product using a Public Domain recording of “War of the Worlds” that I downloaded…
5) On the bottom half of the screen, is an area in which we can build the track list for the CD we are about to create.
You can either drag and drop your “tracks” from the top half to the bottom half of the screen, or you can click on your chosen track(s) in the top half of the screen, and then click the “Add” button – 6 of one, half dozen of the other.
In my example here, we’re only creating an audio CD with a single track, so with one click we have our track list constructed.
Now for the SUPER-DUPER hard part, we may have to practice this part over and over again until we get it right…
Ready?
6) Click…“Burn”!
7) We see the next dialogue box asking if we want to “Add a pause between each track” or “Let me choose advanced settings”…
Since we’re only doing a single track recording, this question is a somewhat mute point however this question is here for a good reason…
Let’s say that we are creating a CD that contains a dozen different music tracks – in this case, I would definitely want a pause between each track so that all of the songs don’t run together – just makes sense right?
In this case I would choose, “Add a pause between each track”.
Now let’s say I broke down this large MP3 file I’m working with into several smaller tracks using an editor like Audacity (to make it possible for the listener to skip around between sections of the recording as opposed to just having one large track) – in a case like that I wouldn’t want a pause between each track, I would rather have the recording “flow” seamlessly between tracks as if it were one continuous recording.
In that case I would choose, “Let me choose advanced settings”.
8. With either choice, processing begins…
9) Then you’ll come to this screen…
A few options on the screen above you’ll want to make note of…
- when recording your “Master” CD, it’s often best to burn at a lower rate ensuring a more stable burn
- always make sure that sure that the “Finalize disc” option is checked or your final production WILL NOT play in a standard CD player
- it’s best in my experience to stay with the default “Track at Once” option
10) Now, simply click on “Burn disc” as shown above to begin the actual recording process…
11) And, a short while later, you’ll see the screen below indicating that your new audio disc has been successfully burned…
If you look at the contents of your CD on your computer you’ll see something similar to the screen shot below. Right now we only have one track of course but notice that the track ends in a .cda extension just like you would find if you popped a regular retail machine-pressed audio CD in your drive…
To finish up, testing your new audio CD in an actual standard CD player is always recommended.
I just created a new product in less than 5 minutes – and like my 8 year daughter would say, “It’s easy-cheesy, like Velveeta!”
Now, you can either take this Master CD and upload it to Kunaki for distribution or you can use it to make duplicate copies yourself every time you sell one.
If you are taking the Kunaki route, you shouldn’t have any issues.
If you are going to duplicate the discs yourself to keep the costs down, make sure you always use high-quality CD-R’s for burning (not CD-RW’s) and just realize that there are older CD players (stand-alone cd players and car CD players) out there that will not read a computer burned disc no matter what you do – as long as you are prepared for that fact (in terms of potential refunds), there’s nothing wrong with duplicating audio CD’s yourself until you can make the shift to outsourcing production.
So, how many new audio CD products can YOU create this afternoon?
P.S. – If you need help with the CDBurnerXP tool, you can find it HERE.
About the Author:
 Logan Andrew is an online entrepreneur, information publisher, and author that has been using Public Domain material to create profitable products and businesses since 2001. He is also co-author of "The Public Domain Treasure Hunter's Survival Kit" available here. For more info Logan, click here. |
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Print This ArticleLast 5 posts by Logan:
- When U.S. Public Domain Magazines Enter The U.K. Public Domain
- Public Domain Author Spotlight: H. Rider Haggard, Adventure Novelist
- Public Domain Author Spotlight: Orison Swett Marden, Self-help Guru
- 17 Great Online Resources For Public Domain Comic Book Research
- When U.S. Works Enter The U.K. Public Domain
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Another classy tutorial, Logan! Thanks a million for this.
cheers, Erin
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Logan Reply:
January 23rd, 2010 at 6:42 pm
Your welcome! I hope it helps.
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Thank you Logan for that great download and tutorial. Absolutely what I needed! I downloaded, installed and ran the program and was able to create a CD of music for meditation which I had downloaded as five MP3 files., but had no idea how I was going to get them all together to run consecutively. I works perfectly. What a gem, and I echo Erin’s “Thanks a million”!
Lucy
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Logan Reply:
January 23rd, 2010 at 6:42 pm
You’re welcome Lucy, I’m very glad you found this helpful.
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Correction – actually I meant “it” works perfectly, not “I”. Typing in too big a hurry, as usual.
Lucy
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Logan Reply:
January 23rd, 2010 at 6:43 pm
Now you’re typing just like me! ; )
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Tried CDburnerXp worked a treat thanks Logan
George
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Logan Reply:
January 23rd, 2010 at 6:43 pm
You’re welcome George! Let me know what else I can help you with…
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I haven’t though about commercializing any audio. You should be able to duplicate any mp3 files either through your computer or a recorders. I’m sure there are probably machines that can dupe multiple mp3s simultaneously, just as there are machimes that will do that for video cds or dvds. I have a few old charlie chan audio files, some to which I;ve listened. There’s tons of old radio shows on the internet many of which I listened to back in the rasio days of the ’40s. I think that my cam off of MIRO which I used to download some old movies, especially westerns, but I did some Charlie Chan movie/videos and the radio audio was included by oversight. At one time or another I’ve seen old radio shows listed on some of the web sites where I was looking for old videos: Inner Sanctum, Nick Carter Detective, Green Hornet, Sky King and many others I remember from when I was a pre-teen. Some may be in wav, wma, ogg, and other formats, but I assume you have audio and video converters.
Hugh
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Logan Reply:
January 24th, 2010 at 7:09 pm
Thanks Hugh!
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Hi
May God’s blessings shower you with blessings and favor that supassing all understanding. I am presently out of work after I resigned to look after a sick child.
Presently I don’t have a budget to buy this and that. But I feel really blessed to have people like you who are providing resources and imparting so much knowledge.
As a former news person, I already see the light at the end of the tunnel. I am making use of what you have offered to help me raise money by writing articles.
God Bless!
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Logan Reply:
January 27th, 2010 at 11:33 am
Hi Alinah,
Thank you for the wonderful feedback. I promise that we will strive to produce content that will be useful for you. Let me know if there is anything specific you would like to learn more about.
By the way, article marketing is a wonderful strategy. It can take a while to see the kind of results you are looking for, but it always pays off. You have to be very patient but it always works.
God Bless you as well!
Logan
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Hi there,
Have not really gotten into how to research, find, and exploit out of copywrite info, but this article gave me a great resource to guide my son and his friends. They are interested in creating music, and I posted Kunaki on their Facebook.
always great to see how people are getting creative with different resources. thank you.
rah.
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Logan Reply:
January 28th, 2010 at 4:53 am
Thanks Robin ~ good luck to your son and friends!
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Thanks for the Kunaki tip. Gave it to my 19 year old son and his friends to inspire them to create and perhaps sell their own music. cool
ROBIN´s last blog ..Super Bowl 44 | Party |Low Carb California Dip
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Any tips on what Mac program could do the same thing?
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Logan Reply:
January 31st, 2010 at 3:01 pm
Hi Jurgen. Well, you can’t go wrong with Roxio (which is my preference anyway), but as far as free disc burning apps for Mac, I’m sure they’re out there in spades but I’ve never used any of them. I’ll ask some of my Mac buddies and see what they can tell us. Thanks!
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Hi Logan,
I’m currently working on a project which involves speeches given during WWII. Any idea on the copyright status of these and how to research the copyright? I am based in the UK.
Thanks
Jim
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Logan Reply:
March 11th, 2010 at 7:07 pm
Hi Jim,
Most likely, you won’t have to do much (if any) copyright research for this project partially because of the timeframe involved (1939 to 1945) and the fact that…
1) Any work created by an employee of the United States Federal Government while in the course of performing their official duties is automatically in the Public Domain under the terms of Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code. This would of course include speeches given by U.S. Presidents and U.S. Military personnel.
2) All works protected by Crown Copyright fall into the Public Domain fifty years after they are created as verified by this quote taken from a message from the Office for Public Sector Information (formerly the HMSO)…
“Crown copyright protection in published material lasts for fifty years from the end of the year in which the material was first published. Therefore, to use your example, material published in 1954, and any Crown copyright material published before that date, would now be out of copyright, and may be freely reproduced throughout the world.”
This of course would include speeches performed by U.K. officials performing official duties in service of the Crown including Winston Churchill.
Beyond that, if desiring to use speeches performed by Government officials of other countries around the globe other than the U.S. and the U.K., an assessment must be made on a case by case basis as to the copyright durations offered to such works by their country of origin.
If you run into a sticky spot let me know and I will be glad to help.
Thanks Jim!
Logan
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