MetaChat - Emergency CD burning!

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10 August 2005

Emergency CD burning! I have about 24 hours to burn my sister a ton of music. I was planning on burning her six CDs of music through iTunes, as mp3 CDs. How do I do this?

post by: interrobang at: 00:18 | 37 comments

I set iTunes to burn as mp3s, and then I selected the playlist and stuck in the disk. Then iTunes told me that "none of the selection could be burned".

Can someone please guide me through this? I've done it before, but I just can't remember how. Also, could someone please tell me the maximum number of hours of music that can fit on an mp3 CD?

posted by interrobang 10 August | 00:18

Oh, and the reason there's a time limit is that my parents are going to visit her in Toronto on Thursday, and I wanted to send along a bunch of music. Thanks.

posted by interrobang 10 August | 00:19

Now it's *sorta* working, but the playlist will have--out of a hundred or so songs--about twenty selected, and the rest are sort of gray and not burning. I just wasted a disk.

None of these songs are from iTunes music shop, by the way, and almost all of them are from old, not copy-protected CDs. What am I doing wrong?

posted by interrobang 10 August | 00:22

select them and convert to mp3 (just in case they're not)

i'd break it up into playlists, each just under 700mbs big, and then do it

posted by amberglow 10 August | 00:39

or you could do 15-20 per playlist.

posted by amberglow 10 August | 00:48

So, each song has to be converted to mp3 from their AAC format?

posted by interrobang 10 August | 00:49

i think mp3 is smaller, so lets you get more on each disc.

posted by amberglow 10 August | 01:01

Is that going to affect the quality of my music collection? I want to send her just about everything I have.

posted by interrobang 10 August | 01:03

i don't think so, but i'm no expert. if it's for her ipod or computer speakers it doesn't matter i don't think.

posted by amberglow 10 August | 01:07

you can set the whatchamacallit too--192 or 128, etc--bitrate?

posted by amberglow 10 August | 01:07

It doesn't seem to give me that option, but I can't honestly say that I can tell the difference between the AACs on my computer and the mp3s. If I just set them all to convert, I guess it'll work. Thanks, amberglow.

posted by interrobang 10 August | 01:09

First, stupid question: are the songs that are greyed out selected by a checkmark to the the left of the title?

MP3s have various sample rates so there is no one answer to your "how many hours" question.

Try selecting a song or a selection of songs in the playlist and then go to Advanced > Convert to MP3. You will then have to re-create your plalist but they will all be in MP3.

posted by Cryptical Envelopment 10 August | 01:09

Are they all AAC?

posted by Cryptical Envelopment 10 August | 01:11

i'm off, so CE will take it from here--g'luck interro : >

posted by amberglow 10 August | 01:11

They grayed-out songs are just gray all the way across, and they're all selected by a checkmark.

No, they aren't all AAC, but most of them are, because that was the default setting when I put all my CDs on the computer.

posted by interrobang 10 August | 01:12

...and actually, under "advanced", convert to AAC is the only option...

So maybe they *aren't* all AACs? The songs that *will* burn are all songs that I've gotten off the internet, or off other people's iPods.

posted by interrobang 10 August | 01:13

Try creating a new playlist and add one mp3 and one AAC so you are not overwhelmed. Be sure to add the files from your iTunes Library and not another playlist. Make sure that the original files are not "greyed out".

posted by Cryptical Envelopment 10 August | 01:15

Okay, trying that...

posted by interrobang 10 August | 01:17

All right, I stuck two songs into a new playlist: one that I got off the internet, and one that I burned off the CD I bought. The one from the CD was "grayed out".

When I select each of them individually, the only option I get under "advanced" is "convert selection to AAC".

Huh.

posted by interrobang 10 August | 01:19

Are you an a Mac or a PC?

posted by Cryptical Envelopment 10 August | 01:22

Mac.

posted by interrobang 10 August | 01:23

Can you burn a CD from one of the albums you have imported from a CD? I.e. are they only greyed out in your new playlist?

posted by Cryptical Envelopment 10 August | 01:24

Yes, only unavailable to burn once I've set iTunes to burn the CD as an mp3 CD rather than as an ordinary CD.

posted by interrobang 10 August | 01:25

So I guess iTunes won't let ACC play with MP3 in terms of burning a MP3 disk. I don't have any blank disks on had so I can't be sure.

posted by Cryptical Envelopment 10 August | 01:28

Some revelation here.

posted by Cryptical Envelopment 10 August | 01:30

I'm going to try converting a whole selection of stuff to AAC, and try again. Thanks for the help, Cryptical!

posted by interrobang 10 August | 01:30

See comment #5. Seems totally stupid to me. So you will have to import those songs/albums again as MP3s and then you can burn away.

posted by Cryptical Envelopment 10 August | 01:32

Try the other way around: into MP3. Sorry I couldn't offer a solution.

posted by Cryptical Envelopment 10 August | 01:33

Is there a reason why you can't burn a data disc from another program? Do you have Nero or whatever? Drag files until the disc is almost full, burn, eject, repeat.

*sigh* I wish most of my collection would fit on 6 cds. I wish it'd mostly fit on 6 DVDs. Wait, no I don't! Err, not unless the DVDs suddenly got bigger. I just keep having to buy bigger and bigger HDs and keep moving it around like some kind of never-ending data diaspora.

posted by loquacious 10 August | 07:04

"like some kind of never-ending data diaspora": very nice turn of phrase, loquacious.

posted by safetyfork 10 August | 09:37

I think I'm missing something here, why couldn't you just have burned them in AAC format?

posted by greasy_skillet 10 August | 10:00

iTunes is notoriously buggy at burning CDs. Not that that helps, but it may be that there is no solution involving iTunes.

posted by dg 10 August | 10:03

There was a thread on AskMe somewhat recently, where someone had this same problem. Damned if I can find it though, or remember what the solution was. Something about the format of the songs on the CD, I think.

As an aside: I ditched iTunes and bought WinAmp Pro last week, and am SO much happier. Pro does everything iTunes does, and so much faster, and easier.

posted by iconomy 10 August | 11:15

I'm also on a mac, and I have to use Toast for all my burning needs. Toast'll burn 'em as mp3s if you set it to data (it converts to .wav or .aiff if you burn as audio).

posted by klangklangston 10 August | 13:56

A friend of mine at work came up with the solution: burn the disk as a data CD, not mp3 or AAC. Works.

Thanks for all the advice, everyone!

posted by interrobang 10 August | 19:12

Dude, that's what I told you to do. I'm suing your cow orker for copyright infringement.

posted by loquacious 11 August | 03:29

Oh, sorry, loquacious; I didn't see most of the thread until the next day because I was at work.

posted by interrobang 11 August | 22:24

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