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i made a cd burning tutorial for my friends a few weeks ago and figured i could put it here too in case any of you guys don't know how and would like to learn. my process for it is kind of scuffed but its reliable. its pretty easy to do once youve gotten through all the kinks of the first try.
step 1: software and other gear
to make this go smoothly u should have all of the following ready beforehand:
- spotify or your preferred music app
- windows media player (pcs usually come with this already installed- u can rip it off the internet if urs doesnt have it)
- cyberlink power2go 13 (this app is scary looking tbh but its fine)
- a device with a disc reader- most pcs have one but if ur using a computer without one, u can get an external disc reader off amazon for a pretty low price. 
^ this is what they look like. ur gonna wanna make sure urs has read/write capabilities
- cds, obviously. i use CD-R rewritable cds because u can change em as u please.
step 2: make a playlist
i use spotify to make playlists of what im gonna put on my cd just to have it all in one readily-accessible place. i can figure out what order i want it all to be in super easily this way. u can also do all ur organizing and music-gathering right on your computer, if u dont wanna go thru the trouble of using spotify or bandcamp or whatever. its nice to do it this way first though since you can get an exact length of your playlist, which makes it easier to gauge if it will fit onto ur cd.
once you've chosen all ur songs, ur gonna find em on youtube and definitely not illegally download them onto ur computer. put them all in one file for convenience. as an optional step, put ur songs into a particular order by putting a number in front of their names. this is just so that when u move them around, u can easily reorder them by title. like this.
note: make sure to check how much data ur cd can hold. u can do this by loading ur cd into ur reader, then going into cyberlink, clicking music disk, choosing audio cd, and opening the settings panel under the "burning" tab in the upper menu. you gotta click the "info" tab and then expand the "disc in drive" dropdown and it'll show u the time available on the disc and the storage capacity in mb, if ur a nerd and care about a metric like that.
step 3: quality control and keeping the process smooth
now ur gonna drag all of ur music files from the folder u made on ur computer into windows media player.
then ur gonna give all ur songs a listen. make sure they sound ok and that their time is recorded in WMP (it will do this automatically). u dont technically have to do this step but it helps make shit smoother and u can also test to see if u like the way ur cd flows :P
then u can just close WMP. yeah thats all we needed it for. trust me though ive skipped this step a handful of times and the songs didnt get their time recorded properly and then my cd was fucked, so. just do it. u can even let it all play in the background on mute if u want.
also, dont use WMP to burn cds. it has the capability to, but its software to do so sucks ass in my experience so just. dont.
step 4: burn
open cyberlink and select music disc > audio cd. The interface of the app looks a liiiiittle scary
but i promise it isnt.
Next ur gonna drag ur music from the folder on ur desktop into cyberlink
check that ur music’s in the right order (if that matters to u) then click next. from the menu that
appears check the “run simulation” box (u only need to run a simulation the first time u burn a cd
just to make sure ur computer doesnt shit itself during the Real Thing) and then press “burn”!
If
ur running a simulation, that will go first and u will have to wait for it to end before allowing the
cd to burn for real. It will prompt u for this and for some reason it ejects the cd after running the
simulation. Just put it back in and continue.
Then u wait for ur cd to burn and ur done!!! Congrats on the cd!!
i may update this in the future with tips on designing a custom cd case, where to buy cheap cases and cds, etc. for now tho thats all.
if u need help or clarification feel free to reach out and ask. i know theres probably a better way to do this but this is my preferred method. thanks 4 reading :P
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EngiQu33ring
If you're into making custom CD's, you should look up LightScribe disks. It uses the laser in the CD writer to etch a design into a special material on the top of lightscribe disks. They came out just before they started phasing out CD's, but they're one of the coolest things from that period. I have a few mixes that I made years ago with some disk art I made using gimp and they're my absolute favorites
oh no way thats so fucking cool. i'll def check it out thanks for telling me abt it :P
by mikey; ; Report