You’d be hard pressed these days to buy a CD player that can’t also play MP3 CDs. My stereo, car, DVD player and XBOX 360 all support MP3 CDs as well as regular CDs. Using MP3 CDs in your car instead of the original CDs is a good idea because it saves you from losing the original if your car is broken into. Using MP3 CDs instead of regular CDs can give another big advantage — you can fit between 7-10 albums on to one MP3 CD. It’s like having a CD changer even if you can only play one CD at a time.
An MP3 CD is a regular old data CD like any CD you put in your computer. Any program that burns CDs can create an MP3 CD, but I like to use iTunes because I’m already using it to manage my music library.
How to Burn an MP3 CD in iTunes
- Put an empty CD in your CD/DVD burner
- In iTunes select File >> New Playlist (or Ctrl-N)
- Click on Music and drag the songs/albums to the new playlist you created
- Click on the new playlist and then click on the Album column header until it says Album by Artist [1]
- Rick click on the new playlist and select Burn Play List to Disc
It’s that simple.
[1] If you don’t click on the Album column then the MP3 CD will be created with all of the songs in one folder. It’s better to create it with one folder per album because then you can use the next folder feature in your car / stereo to switch albums on the MP3 CD.
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19 Comments
That’s a great tip - I’v ehad some mp3 cd’s on iTunes come out with folders, and some not. I never knew why. Thanks for the post.
David
Thanks so much for the advice. Sound idea!
Thats a ridiculously good tip, its something i’ve always wondered how to do in iTunes, thanks!
that’s great advice,
but
what about the NON Mp3 songs that it says it can’t burn?
Ed asks, “what about the NON Mp3 songs that it says it can’t burn?”
Select “Data CD” instead of “MP3 CD” in the Burning prefs. It should still work fine in your car.
you could also get a converter and convert them to mp3 files.
and to avoid the creation of the folders all together, is it enough just to sort the tracks by name? thanks
@ jack:
What I’ve found that works is not sorting at all.
@ Ed
In iTunes, go to Preferences > Advanced > Importing > Import Using : MP3 Encoder
then any song that is says can’t burn, right click it and select Convert Selection to MP3 and then delete the non-MP3 version of it.
This idea is great.
Unfortunately my computer says it still can’t fit all the songs on one disc. Do i need a special type of disc or can i just use a regular cd-r?
@ Tim O:
A regular CD works. You’re going to be limited to around 640 MB of songs on a CD-R.
Ok, I used a CD-RW and put 634 MB worth of music and still no luck.
Do I need to convert all the files to MP3 files?
@ Tim O:
Sorry mate, not sure what issues you’re having. I’ve never had a problem with this. Here’s some Apple iTunes FAQs, but they’re kinda skimpy on details.
http://www.apple.com/itunes/hottips/#cdsfromalbums
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93360
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93286
I know how to put @ 120 songs on but How do I put more than that on a CDR-W is it posible to do that.
I’ve had this problem too and tried your advice above and it still wont work. Am I missing something?
I’m using iTunes 7 on a PC. I create a new playlist and organise it by Album by Artist as suggested. I burn Playlist to a blank CD-RW. When I check the CD, all the songs are on the CD, NOT in folders at all and numbered 1 to 150 etc. Obviously this makes it impossible to navigate in the car stereo. Any help????
Jeremy
Just Worked it out.
For some reason I have to go one step further than the above advice. After clicking on the header to get Album by Artist, I then have to click on the header for Artist only. This must prioritise the sorting process for Artist first, allowing it to create the folders.
I now have a cd with all the folders on it. Awesome.
Jeremy
@ Jeremy:
Thanks for posting a followup.
I’ve tried this method and it works. Sort of. About half of the folders (albums) will be split into two
identically named folders with half the tracks in one folder and half the tracks in the other. What am I doing wrong?
4 Trackbacks
[...] Stupid iTunes Tricks - How to Burn a MP3 CD with Folders [...]
[...] blog explains the iTunes tip: the trick is to sort the playlist by album first before you burn. Stupid iTunes Tricks - How to Burn a MP3 CD with Folders� [Internet Duct [...]
[...] Como véis no tiene misterio alguno, pero puede resultar muy útil. Yo , por ejemplo, suelo usar un CD regrabable para mi lista “podcast no reproducidos” así puedo irlos escuchando cómodamente en el coche (casi todas las autorradios y cadenas de música más o menos nuevas detectan y permiten navegar por este tipo de CD). También va muy bien para grabar toda la discografía de un artista en DVD y tenerla clasificada por carpetas de albums. Espero que os sirva de ayuda. Vía | Internetductape [...]
[...] trick is to sort the playlist by album first before you burn. Read more on this via lifehacker or Internet Duct Tape. Also check the comments for both posts to find more opinions on this tip and other options and [...]