How to name it MP3

Introduction

The new craze nowadays is to buy an MP3 player and buy a ton of music to put onto it. Services such as Limewire and Itunes make a killing off of downloads of these MP3 formatted files. The reason MP3 is so popular is because it is a compression that makes music fit into smaller amounts of digital memory. What a lot of people don't realize is that you don't really need to get all of your music off of these services to enjoy the convenience of MP3 music. You can take your own CDs and convert them into MP3 files for free! All you need is a converter and a CD drive on your computer and you are on your way to having your own collection of MP3 music files on your computer without having to buy new music. Here are some easy steps to follow to rip CDs into MP3 format on your computer.

Instructions

Steps

Step One.

Download software that can rip CDs onto the computer if you don't already have a program that can do it. Windows Media Player comes standard on most PCs and allows you to have the option of ripping MP3s. In order to make this work, a setting needs to be changed in the main menu to keep the files from ripping into WMA files. While these files are pretty much the same as MP3, not all MP3 players recognize WMA files.

Step Two.

Place a CD into the CD drive of the computer. If the computer doesn't recognize and open the ripping program initially, manually open the program and select the drive the CD is in.

Step Three.

The ripping program will let you see how many tracks are on the CD, how long each track is, and how much space the file will take up in MP3 format.

Step Four.

Select the audio quality the music will be "dumbed down" to. This is known as the kps (kilobytes per second). The higher the number, the better the sound quality. CD quality is 360 kps. Anything between 160 and 360 will sound decent after it has been converted. Try it out in several qualities and hear what they sound like. Also, the higher the kps, the larger the file will be.

Step Five.

Select the tracks and the click the rip button in the program. It will take a few minutes to do, but when they are done the program will display something to inform you.

Step Six.

After the files have been copied to MP3 format, you can now rename them, add artist and album titles and even put years the song was released.

Step Seven.

The MP3s can now be transferred to any MP3 friendly device.

Tips and Warnings

• When ripping MP3s, make sure to check the bottom of the CD before starting. Many times what will happen is the CD will be scratched pretty badly and will actually cause the ripping process to either slow down or shut down completely.
  
• Files that are successfully made from a scratched CD could possibly have blank spots, drop outs, and fuzz in the audio.
  
• In order to prevent this from happening, use a cloth and rubbing alcohol to clean the bottoms of the discs before placing them into the computer.
  
• Another thing to watch out for is accidentally sharing a copyrighted file. When a file is ripped into an MP3, it is easy to transfer and copy that information to other computers. If an authority figure ever found a trace of this happening on your computer, you could be sued for big money and even serve jail time. Remember that it is stealing to download copyrighted MP3s and you will be all right.

Enjoy your music collection with the ease of MP3!