Problems burning a CD

May 12, 2010 8:07 PM

I'm running into problems when trying to burn some edited mp3 files to an audio CD.

I'm trying to burn three tracks (about 2-3 minutes each) to an audio CD. So what I did was I ripped two of the tracks using iTunes, then I used Super to convert them from m4a to mp3. Then I used Audacity to add clicks (the tempo) at the beginning of the tracks (and on one cut out a about a minute from the middle) then exported them as mp3. I tried burning them using iTunes, but iTunes crashed. So I took the files to my brother's laptop and he tried to burn them using Windows Media Player. It got through the first track (which was the only one not originally ripped with iTunes) but failed on the second two tracks with no explanation why. Any ideas on what I could try to fix the problem?

FWIW I'm using Windows XP and he is using Vista.

posted by Deflagro to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

Response by poster: So apparently if I rearrange the tracks, Windows Media Player will always burn the first track no matter what it is and then fail on the last two. He says he has never had this problem on his laptop with WMP before.
posted by Deflagro at 8:18 PM on May 12, 2010

Is there a reason why you're exporting them as mp3 as opposed to .wav if you want to burn an audio CD? Why not save from Audacity as a .wav file, or better yet, convert those original m4a's directly to wav, and try it that way?
posted by wondermouse at 8:53 PM on May 12, 2010

OR - when you say you "ripped" two of the tracks using iTunes, you meant from a CD, right? Rip them as wav files. Then you won't need to convert them at all. You can just add the clicks and burn them right back to a CD.
posted by wondermouse at 9:16 PM on May 12, 2010 [1 favorite]

doesn't seem like a windows xp v vista problem. probably audacity saved in a mp3 format that wmp isn't happy with. perhaps try a third party burning package like cdburner xp or, as wondermouse suggested, save the files as waves.

this can sometimes be 44.1khz / 48khz incompatibility. super might have put them out as 48k, which audacity likes but not wmp. although that doesn't explain why each individual track works when first.
posted by kimyo at 9:21 PM on May 12, 2010

Response by poster: So I was planning on working on this today, but found out when my brother tried burning a different cd in WMP he had the same problems. So I took it back to my computer and tried again with iTunes and it worked fine. Guess iTunes was just having trouble that day.
posted by Deflagro at 5:26 PM on May 15, 2010