Copying and burning audio CDs using Windows Media Player 10

Copying audio CDs to your computer's hard drive ("ripping")

1. Dial up or connect to your Internet connection and then minimize your Internet software.  This is done to allow the automatic CD lookup to function. Otherwise the proper artist, album, and track names will not be automatically applied.

2. Open Windows Media Player 10  (Start => Programs => Accessories => Entertainment => Windows Media Player).  Note: these instructions are for version 10 only.

3. Insert an audio CD into the computer's CD drive. The CD will start to play after a few seconds delay. Click the Stop button at the bottom of the window, or press Ctrl-S, to stop playing.

4. In the Windows Media Player window, pull down the Tools menu and select Options. In the Options window, click in the Rip Music tab, click on the "Format" menu and select "mp3".  Then check "Eject CD when ripping is complete" and uncheck "Rip CD when inserted". Slide the "Audio quality" slider all the way to the left ("Smallest Size"). Then click OK.  (Note: these settings are automatically saved, so you only have to do this the first time).

5. Click on the Rip tab at the top of the Windows Media Player window and click the Rip music button at the top right. The copying process will begin .  You will not hear the music while it copies, because the program spins the CD much faster than normal.  Copying a CD takes much less time than playing the CD normally. 

6. Once copying is complete, the audio disk is ejected. Each selected track on the CD will have been saved in mp3 format (assuming you selected mp3 format in step 4) into a folder in "My Documents" --> "My Music". The files will be in folders that Windows Media Player automatically creates and names for each album that you record. 

Burning an audio CD  Note: you must have a CD-writer (CD-RW) on your PC.

1. To burn an audio CD from any music tracks or albums that you have previously recorded, insert an ordinary blank CD-R into your CD-R drive (do not use a CD-RW disk). 

2. After a few moments, a dialog box will pop up that asks you "What you want Windows to do?" Click on "Burn a CD using Windows Media Player".

3. Windows Media Player will open up in the "Burn" mode.  (If that does not happen, you can open Windows Media Player yourself and click on the Burn tab on the top). (Note: to make an MP3 disk rather than an audio disk, click on CD Drive at the top of the right-hand panel and select Data CD. To make a regular audio CD, select Audio CD). 

4. To select music, click Edit Playlist.  This will display all the artists you have copied. Click on the artist's name to see the albums copied for that artist. Click on the album name to see the songs on that album. To select an album or an individual song for copying the the blank CD, right-click on it and select "Add to Playlist".  (If you select too many songs, the ones that don't fit are labeled "Will not fit" in the Status column). To remove a song, click once on it in the Burn List and press the Delete key OR click the red X. Click OK when done. 

5. Click the Start Burn button at the top left to start the CD burning process.  Windows Media Player will display the estimated time remaining to complete the process at the bottom of its window. When it is finished, it will eject the completed audio CD.