PC Gurus' ? about music files

[EddieS'04]

I have music in the form of .wav files. How can I convert and burn them to an audio format, that any CD player can play them...

Thanks...

 

[Jacob Dryer]

Almost all burning software that I have seen has a burn audio disk option. You use that then drag-n-drop whatever songs you want and blamo audio cd.

 

[Todd Z]

I thought .wav was the file that cd players already play..... I know my software makes my .mp3 to a .wav for cd burning....



Just do an Internet search for .wav or .mp3 converter, you will get many sites, most with free trials..

Todd Z

 

[Thomas Rogers]

JDB and ToddZ are right. If you want "any" cd-player to play them, then you simply want to burn the wave files onto a CD-R. Some older players have difficulties with CD-Rs, but most anything fairly recent will play them properly as long as they are wave (.wav) format. Most burning software lets you set up the track information and the tracks sorted as you wish so whatever software you are using start with it's "Audio CD" or "Music CD" burn feature and as JD said, drag and drop the files into the tracks you want.



TJR

 

[Dale Carlson]

I'm not quite sure what these guys are talking about, but music files for CDs that will play in a non-computer CD-player generally have a .cda extension. The .wav extension is an older, non-compressed audio format for computer operating systems. Now you can burn .wav files to a CD, and they'll play on a CD player, but only on a computer of some sort, not a standalone CD player, and you won't get that many files on the CD. IMHO, your best bet would be to convert them to .mp3 files (128 bit rate or higher), and then burn them to CD. A lot of CD players will play .mp3 files nowadays. If you don't have one of those, you're going to need a convertor to the .cda format.



For converting the files to .mp3, I like the free version of Music Match - at least it used to - I haven't downloaded a current version in a couple of years.

 

[Thomas Rogers]

Kefguy, what I am talking about is the fact that every CD burning software I have used (roxio, nero, sonic, etc) allows .WAV files to be used as source for tracks when burning an audio CD.



I suspect it converts if needed to some other file extensions, but I know that a .WAV file is a PCM (pulse-code-modulation) file, and as you say, uncompressed, as are the audio tracks on a standard audio cd. That's why a single minute of wav/pcm music is about 10MB on disk, and why the average CD is rated at about 70minutes of music (or approx 700mb).



Sure, MP3 holds more, but Fast Eddie asked how he can burn his wave files to CD such that they would play on "ANY player"...that would discount MP3, don't you think?



I have included a screen shot from Sonic, which I use, and it allows MP3, WMA, or WAV as the source files when creating an audio-cd, and I am pretty sure that it doesn't do any bit-level conversion of the source files, meaning if you pick MP3 or WMA, the CD won't play on "any CD player", but if you pick WAV, you have a fighting chance, depending on the sampling bitrate.



Here is the screenshot:



[Broken External Image]:



TJR

 

[Tom Schindler]

TJR is 100% correct. Any burning software will allow you to create a music CD. Most will let you use any source to convert to .cda format. You do not copy music in a .wav file on to a CD and expect it to play on any cd player. It won't work. The software will create the CD, build a TOC (Table of Contents for a CD player to read), and then finalize the CD.



Using Nero, IMO the best software for creating CD/DVD, just choose "Make Audio CD" and select the songs you wish to burn. Burn at the slowest speed possible. When the CD is finished, insert into a CD player and enjoy the music.



Converting from a .wav into an .mp3 at 128 bit rate will sound like crap. Why convert to an .mp3 if the software is going to convert it to a .cda on it's own?





Tom

 

[Victor Garret]

If you are using Windows XP, just put in a blank CD-R in your cd-rw drive and copy the .wav files to the CD. Once you add about 15 or so songs, goto My Computer, then right-click on the cd-rw and select write files to Cd. after this, select the option that says "Music CD" and it will convert it for you and burn it.



Hope that helps.



-VG

 

[EddieS'04]

Thanks, Guy's...I will give these ideas a try...

 

[Dale Carlson]

No disagreements with you guys. Just giving the man some options. I don't have a CD changer, but I do have an CD/MP3 player in the Trac - and I pretty much have a tin ear, so MP3s are good choice for me. At 128-bit compression, you can fit about 200 songs on a CD, and it sounds fairly decent (compare that with regular FM radio which broadcasts at about 96-bit). Great for road trips. Compression at 256-bit is probably the best compromise between size and quality.

 

[Thomas Rogers]

Kefguy, the 128 in the "128-bit compression" as you call it is actually the mpeg bitrate of the audio file.



Analog audio has to be sampled at a frequency and converted to digital pulse codes (this is what I meant by pulse-code modulation). The more frequent the samples the more accurate the sound and the more digital data that is generated. A 44.1 kHz rate captures the signal 44,100 times per second and it is this sample rate that is often used for audio encoding, per channel. The sampling rate has everything to do with the original capturing of the analog signal. The sampling rate is in the original source material (the tracks from the CD, or the wave file on disk). However, the sample rate is something worth remembering when it comes to the final bitrate of your content.



The final bitrate is the rate, in bits that the sample data is sent. That is the 128 you are talking about...and that's for all channels.



Compression on the other hand has to deal with the compression of the digital signal. MP3, which is short for MPEG-1 Layer 3, uses a compression technique developed by guy named Fronhoffer, and it compresses the digital signal by removing quite a bit of higher-level sound frequency information that the human ear can't hear, and also by performing some other mathematical compression techniques.



It's through the compression and the loss of data that a WAV file is dropped in size by a factor of about 10 times when converted to an MP3.



Additionally, as you say, you can further reduce the size of the resultant MP3 by reducing the bit-rate of the encoded file, which at some point will mean dropping samples from the original content (e.g. assuming a 16-bit encoding, 128 kb/s can get a theoretical maximum of 8000 samples per second...which is a far cry short of 44,100 which is what is often in the original source material...but often the ear can't tell the difference when dropped).



So, yes, the higher the bitrate, the better the sound because you have retained more of the orginal samples and information; but regardless, MP3 has compressed the content by removing information which can affect sound quality.



I think I got the math and theory right. It's been a long time since I worked on transcoding software.



TJR

 

[Dale Carlson]

TJR, that sounds right. I was thinking in shortcuts. Some ripping and conversion software will let you set the sampling rate - some don't have the option.



If'n I remember correctly, "the removing quite a bit of higher-level sound frequency information" also affects lower-level frequencies also. In any case, I think that's generally referred to as "clipping", which gets to be a problem if your sampling rate is too low or your bitrate is too low, then you can start to notice the highs and lows that are missing.



I hacked my cellphone a couple of years ago by ripping and installing a couple of short 8-bit MP3 files as ringtones - the phone was supposed to only allow midi files as ringtones, but could be fooled with these really low-quality MP3s. As you might imagine, they sounded like crap over regular speakers, but were OK as ringtones.

 

[Thomas Rogers]

Yeah, you are right, kefguy, I said "higher frequencies", but you are right, it removes from both ends of the spectrum.