An odd request
 

Most people want to rip .cda files to .mp3 but I want to convert mp3 to cda so I can play them in my car.

Anyone know of free software to do this please?

Have you tried mp3 in the car? Don't know much about car stereos, but my Passat cd player rund mp3's just fine.

Every CD burning package I know of can create CD Audio discs from MP3s - have you tried that? Just be sure to specify CD Audio, and not Data, for the type of disc you want.

I recon, if you want an easy way to do it, do the following...

Open up Windows Media Player, Add the MP3's to the burn list, then go to the burn list, insert a blank cd, then hit burn....

My CD Player in my car does not play MP3's, so i burn from WMP... I could use NERO and the likes, but thats not as easy in my mind...

IIRC .cda files are what appears when you look at a standard CD in windows explorer, and are only a shortcut to the tracks on a CD, which are usually .wavs anyway.
If you burn a standard cd you will get this list anyway.

..I think..

CDA files is what you see when you stick a music CD into a PC CD player.

The actual "filing system" (if you can call it that) on the CD is nothing PC / Windoze compatible, and the music tracks are encoded with some weird encoding scheme. This was done many years ago for historical reasons, when CD players had no intelligence.

The CD writing software (which as mentioned can invariably accept MP3 as input format) takes care of setting out the whole image and writing it to the CD.

Thanks for all the information and particularly the suggestion that my player might play mp3s - it does!

Next project - finding a way to transfer some vinyl stuff into mp3.

I was pointed at a USB turntable, which would apparently allow me to play my LPs straight into the PC with no further palaver.

The sound quality would almost certainly not be as good as the "proper" turntable and pickup cartridge, but then the MP3s won't be as good as the LPs anyway.

I've not got round to doing it yet, so can't comment on the ease or success.

Yes, I was looking at those - believe Maplin do one.

Thing is, I would only want it for a couple of days, and then it would join the mountain of junk filling every room in the house (I am NOT exaggerating!).

Same goes for the slide scanner I would love to use, but not buy.

Indeed, the device works as advertised. Have begun on the task of CD-izing 250 vinyl pipe organ discs. I figure the decline in my hearing is greater than the vinyl-to-mp3 loss.

You need a program call 'Switch' from NCH Swift Sound...google for it. It converts many audio file types...I'm not too sure if the free version will convert mp3 to cda, but it's worth a shot.

If you do start transferring vinyl to CD... don't go straight to MP3 during the process, always choose uncompressed WAV (PC) or AIFF (Mac) as the intermediate step. That way you won't lose any quality on the way to CD.

(MP3 is lossy compression, it discards some of the audio to get those 10:1 compression ratios - but you don't need it for CD Audio.)

I would suggest you scour the hallowed halls of ebay for your turntable! Bound to be someone in a similar situation out there who has bought one and now no longer requires it... buy it, use it, flog it!