MP3 music format question
 

I'm trying to burn a cd in mp3 format. I have already burned one cd but my problem is that when the cd is played on a car cd player, the cd player has an option to search through folders and files. The cd that i burned did not have folders. It just had 210 songs on it. They were not split into albums or band names. So in order to go to the desired song you have to hit next about a hundred times to get where you want. If they were split into folders then it would be a whole lot easier. So my question is how do I make folders to put the desired songs in? I am using MUSIC MATCH JUKEBOX (burner plus) version. I've tried to fiddle with it but I can't figure out how to do it. Does anyone have this program or know how to split the playlists into folders within the cd?? Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Sorry for the long post.

Create a directory tree on your PC to mimic the layout you want, and burn it like a normal disk. You don't need a music-specific program to do burn an MP3 CD, and it's probably a hindrance anyway. I use Nero, which came with my CD burner.

Will it work on Windows Media Player?

Don't know if WMP will burn a data CD. Have you tried downloading a free trial version of Nero?

No i havent tried to download Nero. Music Match Works great, I just can't figure out how to create different folders.

Just put a new hard drive in my computer -120 gig for $40. So I borrowed a freinds USB hard drive and downloaded his 50 gig of mp3.

So anyway I'm now looking into some free software that is out there to put my collection of 200 cd's on my HD as well. The free stuff is better than what you can buy. EAC (Exact Audio Copy), LAME encoder for variable bit rate recording, Cdex, Foobar2000. Google a few of these for some enlightenment. I'm still learning how to use this stuff effectively so maybe somebody else can chime in their experience with any of this software?

KB

Check http://freshmeat.net/browse/118/ for a LOT of 'em... not all run in windows though.

I've used Audiograbber for years. Simple to use and has worked well on all the burners I've ever used with it...from my first one, a 4x burner, to my latest DVD burner.

You need to download the lame_enc.dll file from their website and copy it to the folder where the program installs (C:\AudioGrabber), and that will take care of the LAME encoder for variable bit rate recording you mentioned. There is a link to the download page in the program help files.

Randy

If you want something easy to configure and use, Audiograbber will do the trick. EAC is for ripping an error free recording. How picky are you? EAC will try to read at 10x or so and continue down to 4x, 2x, 1x, .4x .1x. If your cd's are scratched up - forget about it. CDEX is easy(and free) to use, but does not do much errorchecking compared to EAC.

Lame codec will do VBR but be careful with the latest beta versions. VBR will vary the bitrate from 128k to 192k to 320k depending on the complexity of the music. I was advised to do "alt preset standard" to pass a defined set of presets to the Lame encoder, for optimal playback. It takes slightly more room at the higher bitrates but not by much. A 33MB song compresses to about 2.9MB at 128k or 3.1MB on a VBR.

CDDB and/or Freedb will get all of the Artists names/songs etc from on line databases for you. That is the best part of this, somebody else has already typed out all of the info. Occasionally they will name something incorrectly like (CD2) instead of (Disk2)

If you want about 1000 different things to set for a player/database program check into foobar2000. You have to enjoy dealing with data to use that program. But it does allow you to do about anything you want with the data.

KB