I got a CD burner for Christmas...now what?

Hi Anyone and Everyone who wishes to respond to this post....

I received a Sony 24x 10x 40x internal burner for Christmas. The problem is I have absolutely no idea how I'm supposed to use it. I won't even attempt to install it myself. I'll leave that to someone with expertise Here's my question(s) and thanks in advance for enlightening this 'rookie'. I posted a thread in another forum and by the about the fourth response my original question had gone off in a totally different direction so I'm asking for a little guidance here.

1.) I'm a choreographer/dancer and need to 'cut and splice' music onto cd's. Other than the burner, what other "tools" do I need to accomplish this.

2.) I've been reading and trying to understand what mp3 and wave files are and what they do but am just having a hard time with it. I do know that mp3's somehow compress lengthy files. Could someone explain it to me in very simplified terms. And, when it comes to burning cd's can I burn straight from MP3 or do I need to do something different.

3.) Also, I know I'll need some editing software. Any recommendations on something that is not too expensive and doesn't have a lot of bells and whistles.

4.) I been searching in my computer to see if I meet the minimum requirements and am having difficulties with finding the size of my soundcard. This burner requires a 16bit card and I'm not sure if my current one meets those requirements. I have enough ram to support the burner and I'm running win98 as well. How do I tell which version I have becuase this burner requires win98 second edition and how do I find out the size of my card?

Sorry for making this post a lengthy one and again thanks for the help.

 

The only other tool you might need is probably a burning software....nero is very popular.Some burning programs automaticly convery your mp3s into the right format for a cd so you probably dont need to worry about converting mp3s.I cant help you with the software because i live in Malaysia a.k.a Pirate Heaven so i have no idea how much the programs i buy cost (i buy them for 1 USD) Try nero.

 

Agree on nero, you can check it out here www.ahead.de

As far as editting and mixing software I really have no clue but I found this

May be good to give you some reference to what is available, it all depends on the format's you want to work with

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/windowsxp/partners/vendors.asp

 

Go here this might help you out on your fourth question www.belarc.com When there click on "Belarc Advisor- Free Personal PC Audit".... then download. hope it helps you out

 

The Sony came with most of the software you need. List the software that came with it and we can tell you generally what it does. The basic recording software is called mastering software and it has names like EZ CD Creator, Nero, WinOnCD, NTI CD Maker, Prassi Primo etc. Sony used the Prassi in the past labeled as Sony CD Extreme software, but I don’t think they use that anymore.

Your burner likely also came with packet writing software like DirectCD or InCD that would best be avoided for what you are using the CD writer for.

It might have come with some simple audio editing software. I recommend you download Feurio. It is specifically for recording audio and allows you to do things like fade in and out of tracks where you want, which seems to be what you are looking for. Feurio has a demo that is full featured and you can use it as long as you like without registering it. http://www.feurio.net/English/index.shtml

Don’t mess with downloading Nero unless you want to buy it. The demo will only work for 30 days – there isn’t any reason to learn to use something you can’t keep. Your CD writer probably came with mastering software that is perfectly fine for the things you want to do. Spend your learning effort on the software you already have and Feurio that you can keep. If it turns out to be inadequate for your purposes you can consider purchasing better software.

MP3 files are compressed. Music you download is often in MP3 compression to make the download faster. There are also portable players that play MP3s. My daughter got her boyfriend one for Christmas that holds 6 Gb of MP3s, which is about a thousand songs. The mastering software that came with your burner will certainly convert MP3s to audio CD format on the fly and record them for you. Many bundled software packages don’t normalize (equalize) the volumes between MP3s from different sources. You need to do this step or the volumes can be drastically different between tracks. Feurio will do it for you either automatically or manually – I don’t use anything but Feurio for music.

If your computer came with Win98 it likely has a 16bit sound card and the other requirements for your new burner. The hardest part of installing a CD writer is opening the case. It isn’t rocket science. You might want to try it yourself – get back if you decide to do that.

Audio CDs that play in a regular CD player have their tracks in a form called CDA. CDA is almost identical to wave. Most software that allows you to actually cut or fade tracks will let you work in wave or CDA and convert them for you. Both CDA and wave are simple uncompressed digital audio files.

Don’t buy any 90 or 99 minute blank CDs as they don’t work in your Sony. No big deal as the things are so far out of color book standards they are useless in most entertainment players and a chancy place to store important data.

 

Thanks to everyone who responded. Slipe thanks for all of your great info. I'm going to download the feurio program and check it out. Also, I'm going to let a friend install the burner for me. He can do it with no problems at all.

Here's the software that is included with the burner.
B's Recorder gold (writing software)
B's Clip (Packet writing software)
Retrospect Express (Backup Software)
ArcSoft Photo Base (Photo Software)
MusicMatch (Music Software)
ArcSoft Video Impression (Video Software)

In fact, I just found a quickstart guide that gives a quick description of what each one does.

Okay...so what I understood from your post is that with the software that's included in the burner and in addition to the feurio program I should have everything I need? I have another friend who told me about EZ CD Creator and also Cool Edit. You're saying I don't need these with what I have already?
Thanks for the clarification!!!

 

I would certainly try to use what you have before buying something else. B’s Recorder Gold is the equivalent of EZ CD Creator or Nero. I think Nero is probably the best overall but you might not be doing some of the more complex stuff that Nero excels at and it is harder to use than most.

I wouldn’t even install B’s Clip until you become experienced with the normal mastering software.

MusicMatch is decent software but Feurio is more competent at some things. Feurio might be harder to use. You are going to have to go through a learning curve in any case to be able to smoothly cut and splice music to CD.

It looks like a good software package. You shouldn’t have to buy anything else unless you want to back up copy protected games or record from an analog source like LP or tape.