Burning a mp3 CD with iTunes

[Warren Rabbit]

I hope I can explain this clearly. With my old PC using Roxio I could drag and drop not just files but folders to be burned as a mp3 disc. So I could record whole albums which would be displayed in a folder each. The display would show folders; Diana Krall, Santana, Stan Getz etc, and selecting the folder would then bring up the track titles.

Now I have a Mac and the only burniing software I have is iTunes, and for the life of me I can't work out how to do it. However I try to put tracks into their individual folders in a playlist, when it comes time to burn the CD the tracks are listed, not the folders, so a disc with ten albums burned on it means I will have to wade through a hundred titles or whatever to find what I want, and if I'm in the car and I want the last album I'll have to push next 100 times to get there.

Hmm, I don't think I've explained it very clearly, but any suggestions?

[spannersatcx]

Sounds to me that previously you were writing a data disk that has folders with mp3 files in it, for that you would need to use some cd burning software, don't know what you can get for a mac but for a pc it would be nero or roxio.

Itunes isn't that type of software as far as I know. It will burn an audio cd but not a data one with folders and files on it.

[Richard Spandit]

I believe iTunes will burn a data CD - of mp3 files but doubt it organises them into folders. Do a Google search for Mac burning software.

Would your car stereo not sort the tracks by album anyway from the ID3 tags embedded in the files?

[Warren Rabbit]

The car stereo sorts them alphabetically by track if there are no folders to sort, so if I want to listen to a ZZ Top album it's a painful process.

Responses so far confirm my fears that iTunes just can't do it. I like iTunes as a player but as a burner it leaves a lot to be desired. Anyone got any recommendations for a basic software package for Mac? I don't need all the DVD burning features etc of Toast. I need cheap and basic.

[Richard Spandit]

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=free+mac+burning+software&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

[WeatherJinx]

Warren

From what I think you said it should be fairly easy, and if you're using OS X (which you didn't make clear), the capability of building a 'Burn' Folder is built right into the OS. I think you wanted to burn items from various playlists onto the one CD (even though they might have been stored in different folders).

Best place to start would be to be in Library view in iTunes:

Now Ctrl-click on the Desktop and select 'New Burn Folder' This will create a special folder on the desktop with a yellow & black icon).

From Library view, use the (very quick) Search function to bring up the tracks you want (I would suggest searching by Artist, since you implied you wanted to burn songs from the same artist but across different albums).This would bring up all your titles by that artist regardless of album or folder. Select the tracks you want using Cmd-click.

Now drag the highlighted tracks into the Burn Folder, Ctrl-click again and select 'Burn Disc' (assuming of course you've inserted one!). Hope this helps.

Jx

[Warren Rabbit]

Thanks guys, I figured it out eventually. I tried making playlists named Genesis, Supertramp etc and dragging the tracks into them, but the same problem arose. When the time came to put them into the Burn folder, it would just dump the tracks themselves, which is what your suggestion also achieved, WJ. By a process of trial and error, and with absolutely no help from the Help files which insist CD's must be burned rom playlists, I eventually developed a work around.

As an example, I opened a new folder on the desktop, named it Genesis, dragged the Trick of the Tail album tracks from the Library into the Genesis folder, then dragged the Genesis folder into the New Burn Folder. Similarly with Supertramp, Diana Krall, etc so that when I insert the burned CD, I can select the artist I want rather than having to scroll through ten albums worth of tracks to find it. QED. :ok:

[WeatherJinx]

OK Warren - I think I get what you were trying to achieve now, which I didn't before, really! You're trying to drag the tracks you want to a burn folder in order to make a CD that has some kind of folder structure in itself (sorted by artist in this case)?.

OK that's fine, but just out of curiosity, what device are you playing the CD back on that would allow you to navigate through such a structure to select a track? If it's the Mac itself, then surely exactly the same result can be achieved by filtering the required artist from the search function in iTunes, without the need to burn media at all? :confused:

Jx

[spannersatcx]

I'm in the car

In his car I believe

[Blacksheep]

The i-Tunes playlists aren't folders that contain the tracks, they're a tool for accessing tracks stored more or less randomly in the database. I use an i-Pod in the car (or anywhere else for that matter - that's what they're for) so I don't have the problem - the playlists work fine.

[Warren Rabbit]

Weather Jinx, As stated, the car CD/mp3 player is the main place it affects me; it's a great way to have music on long trips. But what actually brought this up was that a mate of mine who had only a very old turntable and a pile of 70's LP's asked me if I could provide him with some music now that he has finally purchased a DVD player. (A computer is still some way in the distance for him!) He is stoked that he can have ten albums on one CD and be able to play it with his DVD remote.

There is one other occasion where this setup can come in handy, and that is if I'm away from home. The sound of my laptop's speaker is not inspiring, and I find that most motel's TV/DVD setups provide better sound.

Cheers,
Bunny

[WeatherJinx]

Warren
Thanks for the reply - I didn't see the 'in my car' bit! I know what you were getting at now, what I was having trouble getting my head around was what benefit would be gained from burning a CD that way for play on anything other than iTunes on a PC or a Mac.

If this really does what you say and reduce the number of clicks' required for navigation, then great - I just didn't think it would work that way - I guess that's down to how whizzy your car stereo is!

I personally use folders to bind various playlists together, giving an extra layer of manipulation to iTunes which as Blacksheep points out is basically just a database. Oh, and iTunes isn't that type of software as far as I knowI think you'll find that it is, spanners..it's perfectly capable of burning an MP3 CD. If you're going to make snide, patronising remarks to others, it'd be a good thing to get your own facts straight first ;)

[spannersatcx]

edit: edited out as I was wrong, and don't want to sound patronising or give snide remarks.:mad:

[Warren Rabbit]

Weather Jinx,

I'm not sure where you got any indication of patronising or snide remarks in spanners' post, it seemed quite OK to me. Maybe some misinterpretation. And Spanners, I think you're wrong, burning a data cd with mp3's is exactly what I've just done. As a combination player/library database/ cd burner iTunes is pretty impressive. Certainly the burning is less intuitive than my old Roxio CD Creator, but for a multi-purpose piece of software it's not bad at all.

[MightyGem]

Now I have a Mac and the only burniing software I have is iTunes

iTunes is not CD burning software. When compiling a list of tunes(or files for a data CD) for burning to CD, you are merely telling the OS what you want on the CD. It does the rest.