How to burn iTunes music to MP3 CD

Want to play songs in iTunes library in your car or home stereo and have fun? With iTunes, you can burn three types of CDs, audio CD, MP3 CD and data CD. All you need is iTunes, a computer with a CD burner and blank discs.

A standard audio CD (650 MB) can hold about 20 songs, an MP3 disc about 150, and a data CD about 185 AAC song files.

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Audio CD

Audio CD if officially referred to as Compact Disc Digital Audio or CD-DA. The format is a two-channel 16-bit PCM encoding at a 44.1 kHz sampling rate.

You can use iTunes to burn audio CDs and play them on stereos and CD players.

MP3 CD

MP3 CD is a term used to refer to compact discs that contain MP3 files. An MP3 CD can be used in car and home stereos and MP3-equipped players.

You can use iTunes to create CDs of music in MP3 format; the songs sound as good on the CD as they do in iTunes. You can listen to MP3 CDs you create on special consumer CD players or on your computer.

Data CD

A data CD is a compact disk that can basically store all files on your compute. It’s widely used for archiving and transferring large quantities of data. A single data CD typically offers 680-700 MB of storage.

You can use iTunes to burn data CD and back up the music you purchase from the iTunes Music Store, just in case a file is accidentally deleted or damaged.

How to create MP3 CD

Step 1 Create playlist

Before burning a MP3 CD, you need to create a playlist first. You can store more than 12 hours of music, or about 150 songs, on a 650 MB CD-R disc. You can see the size of the selected playlist at the bottom of the iTunes window.

Step 2 Select MP3 CD

Click the menu Edit > Preferences > Advanced > Burning, choose MP3 CD as the Disc Format, and then click OK.

Step 3 Select the playlist

Select the playlist want to burn to the CD, and make sure all the songs you want to include have a checkmark beside them.

Step 4 Insert blank disc

Click the Burn MP3 CD button (at the bottom of the iTunes window) and insert a blank disc.

Step 5 Start burning

Click the Burn Disc button to start burning mp3 CD.

Tips on burnning iTunes music to MP3 CD

When you burn a CD, iTunes automatically adjusts the recording speed to the blank CD's rating. However, you can change the CD recording speed if you feel it’s necessary.

You can print a list of the songs in your library or a selected playlist, or simply to have a song or album list. Select your library or a playlist and choose File > Print. Select a Print option. Choose a theme from the Theme pop-up menu and click Print.

A particular playlist can not be burned over 7 times, if the playlist includes iTunes Store purchases. However, you can create another playlist, containing these songs, but make slight change by adding or deleting one or two songs.

If the playlist includes songs in formats other than MP3, such as songs purchased from the iTunes Store, they aren't burned to the CD. In this case, you may need audio conversion tools to convert the songs to mp3 format first. Notable converters such as NoteBurner, Tunebite, SoundTaxi, NoteCable and myFairTunes can help.

Warning

Most stereos can’t recognize CD-RW discs. To make CDs that can playback on your stereo and other equipment, use CD-R discs.

The songs contained in the playlist which you wish to burn must be legally authorized.

If the playlist contains more songs than fit on a CD, iTunes burns only the number of songs that fit on one disc, and then prompts you to insert another disc to continue burning the remaining songs.

Songs you download from the Internet may be of different quality because other encoding formats were used.