Burning Audio CDs

Introduction

Burning (the process of writing data or audio data to a CD) Audio CDs can be carried out with many different softwares, all doing a similar job. Most CD and DVD drives that are capable of writing to a disc come bundled with their own software which make copying a CD extremely easy. But, we want to use EAC to extract our audio (no bundled softwares, excluding Plextools, can extract audio with the same exactness as EAC). So, if we want to make a back-up of our extracted audio files onto another audio disc, what should we use?

For the purpose of this guide I'll choose an option that makes the burning process very simple, without any sacrifice in quality (unless otherwise stated). The burning softwares we'll use are Nero and Foobar2000. The reason for installing both is that Foobar2000 requires Nero's burning engine. Nero is an excellent burning software package in it's own right, but Foobar2000 makes the process much simpler once we're all set-up. The added advantage is that Foobar2000 makes gap-less CDs by default from any natively gap-less format, even MP3 (if the MP3 has been encoded with LAME 3.9x or later).

Foobar2000 first and foremost is an audio player for the PC, not exactly designed for the novice but it's one of the most comprehensive and feature rich audio players for the PC there is.

Down-load The Software

If you already have the following software's installed on your PC, you needn't re-install them unless your Nero version is pre 6.x or your Foobar2000 doesn't contain the foo_burninate.dll in the /foobar2000/components folder.

Go to the Nero site and proceed to the down-load section. Find the demo-versions section and down-load and install Nero 6, if you don't already have it installed.

Go to the Foobar2000 site, down-load and install the Special Installer version.

Configuring The Software

We need to now ensure that Foobar2000s interface with Nero can see the drive you will write with. Start up Foobar2000 and go to the Foobar2000 menu, click on Preferences from the pulldown menu. From the components list you want to go to the Audio CD Writer menu, as shown in the following image:

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From the device pulldown menu you should choose the drive you wish to write with. (The Image Recorder will write an .nrg image to your hard drive.) If your writer isn't listed make sure that Nero does actually support your drive by visiting their site and ensure that your Nero is up to date.

Writing To CD-R

Now everything is set-up this last step is all you need to do to write an audio CD-R each time.

1) Put a blank CD-R into your chosen drive for writing.
2) Drag and drop the files you wish to burn into Foobar2000. Highlight all the files you wish to burn and then right click. Choose Write Audio CD from the menu.

Foobar2000 will now write your audio CD.