Burn Audio CDs

Easy - Fast - Digital Audio CD Burner

Drew's CD Writer/Burner Tutorial
Here's a sophisticated but easy to use CD Writer/Burner that will create perfect Audio CDs with no hassle and no complex programming. Forget multifunction burners that are only partially made for standard Audio CDs. You won't have to wade through a ton of unrelated features. We simply burn perfect Audio CDs with no extra complexity, period.
The CD Writer Is An Added Option Of The Advanced Editor Version Only.
I've added a CD Burner option because even though your computer came with Burner Software, it's often too complicated and does so many other things that it's hard to focus on just the controls you need for burning Audio CDs. After all, you want to burn Audio CDs, not backup data, burn data discs, burn your family pictures or even make MP3 CDs. For audio CDs you don't care about buffers, number of folders deep, Joliet or not, etc.

What you do care about is

1. Finalizing/Closing your CDs. If you don't do this, your CDs won't play in your Car and Home CD players. With most burners this can be hard to find. So, I've made this burner automatically Finalize your CDs so you don't have to.

2. Set Your Burner Burn Speed. Most CD Writers/Burners should run at about 1/2 their maximum burn speed so that the CDs will play on older CD players and portable and car CD Players. We've put the Burn Speed Selection up front too. And for most CD writers, you can select the speed at which you want to burn. But finding the speed setting in most burner programs can be complex. So I've put ours right up on the screen where you can get at it.

Both of these functions are probably available in the burner software that came with your computer, but as I've said, finding them can be a pain. And we don't want to be in a position where we can't help you copy your music. So by standardizing on our new burner, we can make sure we are all on the same page, making terrific sounding digital music from now on.

PLUS.

Honestly nobody's burner makes your sound better or worse. It's all digital and it will all sound great. The big difference is the ease of use. And I think you'll find our burner is the best ever (and easiest) for making Audio CDs of your favorite music.

Oh, one more important consideration. Many other burner software programs take over your computer and 1) become your default burner and even player. And 2) don't allow other burner software to operate.

The DAK burner is unique. It won't alter the way you use your other burner at all. It won't have any effect on the rest of your system. It will simply help you burn flawless audio CDs from now on.

Quick Index
Of Major Functions
Click Buttons For Details

OK, Let's get started.

The Writer/Burner Main Screen

DAK's unique Audio CD burner will make your CD burning fast and easy. It's super easy to use. And we've only put in the features you need to burn audio CDs to keep it fast and easy, and of course to provide flawless digital copies of your music on CD. We've put the MP3 CD burner on a completely separate tab so it's really like another program you only go to if you want to burn MP3 CDs.

Here's what to do.

Arrow 1.) Choose the CD Drive you want to use. Many computers have more than one, so we've given you a choice here.

Arrow 2.) This button lets you open your CD drawer to put in your blank CDR.

Arrow 3.) This button lets you close the CD drawer after you put in the CDR.

Arrow 4.) Choose your burn speed here. Be sure to burn at 1/2 speed or less so your CDRs should play everywhere.

Arrow 5.) Click Burn to actually burn your CDRs.

Arrow 6.) You can cancel the operation here.

Arrow 7.) This is the button to push to add tracks to the burner.

Arrow 8.) Remove a file you have highlighted from your burn list.

Arrow 9.) Move up a highlighted track in the playlist.

Arrow 10.) Move down a highlighted track in the playlist.

Arrow 11.) Clear the entire playlist.

Arrow 12.) As you load tracks you'll see how much room on the CD you've taken as you go. Still got room? Add more tracks.

The Track Amount Display - This is an all new way to show you how much you can burn. It looks simple but I don't think that you'll find anyone else with this. And I'm very proud of this. Green shows for up to 60 minutes, Orange for up to 72 minutes and Red above 72 minutes. This is 100 times easier than prior megabyte type displays.

That's it. Burning CDs is all easy from now on.

NO TRACK NAMES ON CDs

Important Note: Do you see the track numbers Arrow 2, not names in the picture. People think that the names of the tracks are actually on the CDs they buy. But, they are not. Only the track numbers are there. The names weren't part of the CD format when it was invented back in the 80s. In fact, 8 character DOS was about all you had.

But I see names when I load a CD in my computer? Yes, usually you do. But the program playing your CD goes out to the Internet and accesses a free database usually FREEdb that volunteers like you and me have added CD album info to. It usually gets about 80% of the CDs right. But it just matches an ID number.

When you convert albums and cassettes from analog there's no database to query, so we've added a naming function in the DAK Playlist manager you'll find in the Toolbox for you to name your tracks. But remember if you're just burning CDs your names won't be there. For the tracks you keep on your computer, I'd name them so you can know what they are. And for your MP3 files, we name and add tags to those too.

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Putting Tracks In Your Program So You Can burn Your CD

My little animation shows it all. Just click Add Files and you can add - 1.) A single track, 2.) A series of tracks or 3.) Randomly selected tracks. See below.

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Putting Tracks In Your Program So You Can burn Your CD (Add A Track)

It's really easy to put tracks into the program to burn a CD. There are 3 ways to do it.

Arrow 1.) Click Add File.

Arrow 2.) Navigate to the folder where the file is and Click or Double Click the file/track you want to load.

Arrow 3.) The track will show up in the File Name Box.

Arrow 4.) Click Open and it will load into the Burner Program.

Just repeat this for each individual file you want to load.

NOTE: You can load MP3, WAV and WMA files for burning. They will automatically be converted to standard Wave/CDA files when you burn the CD. It's automatic. You don't have to do anything.

Note 2: You can mix MP3, WMA and Wav files when you load them into the Burner Program. It will automatically convert them all to Wave/CDA files for standard audio CDs with no problems at all. Again, you don't have to do anything. It's all automatic.

BUT REMEMBER if you are burning MP3s or WMAs to CDs they will grow by 10 Times. So you can only burn about 60 Megs of MP3 and that will become 600 Megs on the CD

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Putting Tracks In Your Program So You Can burn Your CD (ADD A Series Of Tracks)

What if you want to add more than 1 track. This is a standard Windows operation that lets you load as many tracks as you wish that are in a series. I mean that are next to each other like you see above.

You can add a few like I have shown above or every track in the folder by simply
HOLDING DOWN THE SHIFT KEY as you select tracks. So you can hold down the shift key and click one track then the next and the next and so on, or you can do it all with one click by clicking on only the 1st and last tracks you want to load. They will all turn blue and be loaded at once.

Arrow 1.) Click on each track or the 1st and last track of the series of tracks you want to load.

Arrow 2.) Click Open to load them all in the burner.

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Putting Tracks In Your Program So You Can burn Your CD (Select Random Files)

OK again, this is a Windows thing. But what if you want to load 4 or 5 tracks that aren't together in a series? Simple just HOLD DOWN THE CONTROL KEY and click on the tracks you want. This way you can select any tracks no matter what order they are in.

Arrow 1.) Hold down the Control Key on your keyboard and click on the tracks you want to load.

Arrow 2.) Click the Open Button to load them in the burner.

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Rearrange Track Order

You'll probably already have your tracks in order after you use DAK's exclusive Preserve Playlist Order program. But if not, we've provided an easy way to arrange your tracks any way you want.

Arrow ) Highlight the track you want to move, then just click the Move Up or Move Down buttons as shown.

So as you can see, moving tracks couldn't be easier. After all you do want your CDs to have the tracks in the order that you want, not some alphabetical order imposed by Windows.

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Remove & Clear Tracks.

Want to remove a track or a few? Just highlight them and click the Remove File button.

Which CD Writer To Use?

Many computers today come with 2 CD writers. No problem. Just select the one you want, put in a CDR and burn. If that drive doesn't work for any reason, just select the next one.

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Set Your Burn Speed. THIS IS IMPORTANT.

It's a rule of thumb. Home CD burners shouldn't run at full speed when burning audio CDs. Portable and car CD players just aren't as accurate as we'd like so the industry has found that if you burn at 1/2 or less of the maximum burn speed of the CD writer in your computer your burned CDs are likely to play just about anywhere.

We've put our burn speed pull down box right up front so you can set the burn speed. Generally set it for about 16-24 and you should be fine. Your CD writer will write to the nearest speed to our setting and you'll get CDs you can play where you want them.

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The Actual Burn Steps In Pictures.

OK the pictures say it all. Just open the drawer, load your CDR, close the door and click Burn. Could it be any easier?

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And Here's What You'll See As It Burns.

There's nothing for you to do while your CDs burn. Just relax. I've shown you the progress screen you'll see. But it's all automated, so have a cup of coffee, your CDs will be ready soon.

The whole reason for this burner was to make it easy for you and to make flawless CDs for you to take with you from now on.

Just click Burn when you are ready and soon you'll be listening to your tunes anywhere you like.

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A Few Last Thoughts.

That's it. Happy burning. It's fast. It's simple. And now we can all be on the same page in case you ever have any questions. DAK's goal is to be able to support you 100% and when you use this burner, we can tell you just how to get your CDs burned fast and easy.

. . .Drew

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