how burn audio file to CD on Mac?

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Sally P - 28 Aug 2008 20:10 GMT

I have an iBookG4 with OSX4.11. Bought a digital recorder that makes WMP
files. Have not been able to burn audio files onto a CD. Any suggestions??
The CD does seem to burn info, probably data, but not audio. Tried playing it
on 2 CD players but nothing.

Help appreciated...

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Corentin Cras-Méneur - 28 Aug 2008 21:30 GMT

Hi Sally,

> I have an iBookG4 with OSX4.11. Bought a digital recorder that makes WMP
> files. Have not been able to burn audio files onto a CD. Any suggestions??

You'll first need to convert the WMP files to a format iTunes
recognizes.
CoolWmaWmav <http://www.mackity.com/logiciels.php> is free and can do it
for you.

Then you can import the music in iTunes and burn an audio CD from there.
It's fairly simple.

> The CD does seem to burn info, probably data, but not audio. Tried playing it
> on 2 CD players but nothing.

Well you are burning a data-CD. It simply puts the WMA files on the CD.
You can then only play these files through a player that supports WMA.

What you need, in order to be able to play the CD in any CD player, is
probably to make a regular Audio-CD and, again, iTunes will do all that
for you for free.

Corentin

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Sally P - 29 Aug 2008 20:14 GMT

Coretin,

Thanks for taking time to post a suggestion. I tried downloading the
converter you recommended but was not able to get it to work. It kept
freezing up and didn't keep my settings for English, etc.

I'd be willing to try again but can you tell me the format I should convert
it into so that iTunes can read it? MP3?

Thanks again,
Sally

> I have an iBookG4 with OSX4.11. Bought a digital recorder that makes WMP
> files. Have not been able to burn audio files onto a CD. Any suggestions??
> The CD does seem to burn info, probably data, but not audio. Tried playing it
> on 2 CD players but nothing.
>
> Help appreciated...

Reply to this Message

Corentin Cras-Méneur - 29 Aug 2008 20:29 GMT

> Coretin,
>
> Thanks for taking time to post a suggestion. I tried downloading the
> converter you recommended but was not able to get it to work. It kept
> freezing up and didn't keep my settings for English, etc.

I haven't tried this applciation myself. I just did a quick Google
search and this one came up (and was free).
There are plenty other apps for that out there (but usually shareware).
AudialHub is the first one that comes to my mind (though I'm not sure it
supports WMA - you'll have to check).

> I'd be willing to try again but can you tell me the format I should convert
> it into so that iTunes can read it? MP3?

iTunes supports MP3, AAC, WAV, AIFF, FLAK

AIFF is not lossy at all and will be an easy format to then burn a CD.
The files end up huge though.
FLAK is good too, but few applciations support it and it will require a
conversion for CD burning (iTunes does it for you).

MP3 and AAC are a lot more compact, but both have to compress the data
and there is some loss of quality there (less with AAC than MP3). You
have to chose the compression rate (in term of how much data is used to
encode one second of audio). Needless to say that the higher compression
(lower bitrate) also produces the lowest quality.

Corentin

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Sally P - 04 Sep 2008 22:13 GMT

Hi Corentin,

Ended up trying Switch freeware, that someone else recommended. Converted
WMA files to MP3 and was able to put files on iTunes and on my iPod. Only
thing not working is listening to it on a CD I burned. Maybe my '05 car CD
player doesn't read MP3.

Any suggestions for a format it might read, since Switch had many format
options?

Thanks for your help,

Sally

> > Coretin,
> >
[quoted text clipped - 25 lines]
>
> Corentin

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Corentin Cras-Méneur - 05 Sep 2008 15:25 GMT

> Hi Corentin,

Hi Sally,

> Ended up trying Switch freeware, that someone else recommended. Converted
> WMA files to MP3 and was able to put files on iTunes and on my iPod.

Switch is a pretty good application.

> Only
> thing not working is listening to it on a CD I burned. Maybe my '05 car CD
> player doesn't read MP3.

Few players do so that's probably the case.

> Any suggestions for a format it might read, since Switch had many

format

> options?

Well that's why I mentioned AIFF and importing in iTunes in my previous
post.
You made a data-CD with MP3 files on it. OK for computers, but not most
CD players.
If you import the songs in iTunes and place them in a playlist, you will
be able to burn the playlist as an audio CD (playable in any CD player).

Now about formats..... AIFF is huge, but keeps 100% of the quality of
the original file. It is also the format used by audio CDs. That could
be an option (if you have tons of hard drive space and quality is
critical).
Otherwhise, I would use AAC with a good bitrate (192 should be enough,
but you can go higher). This is compressed, looses a bit of information,
but at high bitrates hardly *anyone* can hear the difference, especially
in a car with the ambient noise :->

No matter what format you choose, iTunes will take care of converting it
on the fly as it burns the CD.

Corentin

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Sally P - 05 Sep 2008 17:57 GMT

Coretin,

Many thanks for all your pointers. Invaluable and saving me from more hours
of aggravation.

Yesterday, I burned the CD from the burn folder that had the files converted
into MP3. Will try burning directly from iTunes, to see if that does the
trick. That was going to be my next attempt anyhow.

Merci bien,

Sally

> > Hi Corentin,
>
[quoted text clipped - 35 lines]
>
> Corentin

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Corentin Cras-Méneur - 05 Sep 2008 20:24 GMT

> Merci bien,

You're very welcome,

Corentin

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Sally P - 07 Sep 2008 00:07 GMT

One final success to report. Burned a CD from iTunes and then was able to
listen to the recorded music on my car CD player! What a relief to be done
figuring this out.

So thankful there are people like you out there willing to offer advice on
navigating the maze of computer complexities and tech incompatibilities.

Hopefully, I won't need to post any more questions on this.

With gratitude,

Sally

> > Merci bien,
>
> You're very welcome,
>
> Corentin

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Corentin Cras-Méneur - 08 Sep 2008 15:39 GMT

> One final success to report. Burned a CD from iTunes and then was able to
> listen to the recorded music on my car CD player! What a relief to be done
> figuring this out.

I'm glad it worked :-)

> So thankful there are people like you out there willing to offer advice on
> navigating the maze of computer complexities and tech incompatibilities.

From times to times everybody has a question in desperate need of an
answer. I came to the MS newsgroups when Office X was released. Office X
(and MacOS X mind you) was quite "young" and I was having nasty issues
with it. Others in the newsgroups had a few answers for me, I had a few
for them, etc... One thing leading to another, I end up coming here once
in a while and trying to answer other people's problems. It's a peer
support group and there are many here who do their best to help others
when they know the answers.

> Hopefully, I won't need to post any more questions on this.

:-)

> With gratitude,

It's been a pleasure Sally,

Corentin

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Mac Forum / Applications / Media Player / September 2008

how burn audio file to CD on Mac?