MP3 101

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MP3 101

How many of you have heard of the term “MP3”? Good, I see some hands. OK… Sir? Where have you heard it? “Doesn’t it have to do with Metallica and that Napster thing?” Yes, that is correct. Now, I’ll ask another question. How many of you actually know how to make one? Wow, I haven’t seen so many dumbfounded faces since my last statistics final. Anyway, I’m here to help you get through the vigorous process of taking an audio CD track and converting it into an MP3. Then, we’ll go over the different options available when transferring the MP3 onto other forms of media. Required ingredients:

One audio CD (preferably not Backstreet Boys, LFO, N’sync, 98 degrees, Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, Christina Aguilera, Mandy Moore or any other crappy, overplayed, no-talent artist(s)… the MP3’s don’t like them)

PC with MusicMatch Jukebox software (free to download), Winamp software (free to download), Easy CD Creator software ($80?!), CD-RW drive (any speed) and sound card with both digital and analog outputs

Stand-alone CD recorder (you know, the ones that do the same thing as the computer models but cost three times as much)

Computer speakers or headphones (any brand)

Now, mix all the above ingredients into a bowl, nuke for 30 seconds, and voila! You have Soufflé le Empey Tres!

But, not everyone has a microwave so we’ll have to do it the hard way. Don’t worry, I’ll hold your hand…

Pop on the PC and put the audio CD in the PC’s CD-ROM, DVD-ROM or CD-RW drive.

Open up MusicMatch Jukebox (I chose this program because it’s free of charge. I personally like Audio Catalyst since I find it to be a better program, but it does cost $30)

If you have access to the Internet, you can utilize a service called CDDB (Compact Disc Database). This service connects to the CDDB servers, which has a huge number of CD’s in their database, and determines the name of the CD you put in the drive as well as the titles of all the tracks. Therefore, once the MP3 is made, it is already titled for your convenience.

We will now perform an act called ripping audio from the CD. What we will be doing is taking the track from the audio CD and converting it into a file on the computer, called a WAVE file (because its extension is WAV). A three minute song constitutes a file which is around 50 megabytes (MB) in size. This is a lot, even for one of the new 75 GB hard drives. The file can be ripped in varying degrees of quality, with the lower the quality equaling a smaller sized file. “CD quality” is considered to be 44Hz, 16-bit, and stereo, which is the level you should be ripping tracks at. The time it takes to accomplish this is dependent on how fast your CD-ROM drive can rip the tracks but it rarely takes more than 90 seconds.

You then have a WAVE file of the audio track that you ripped and you need to convert or encode the file into an MP3. This process can also be done by MusicMatch. Here, you have a number of options on how the file is encoded. One term that needs defining is bit rate. This is how high the quality of the MP3 file is encoded at. It can range from 16 kilobits per second (kbps) up to 320 kbps. The term “kbps” refers to how much hard drive space the file takes up. Eight kilobits is equal to one kilobyte.

So, students, let’s do some math. If we have a three minute song at 16 kbps, then it will take up 16 X 180 seconds = 2880 Kilobits. This value divided by eight is equal to 360 Kilobytes, which is the denomination that your hard drive is calculated in. If the MP3 is at 320kbps, then the math goes: 320 X 180 = 57600 Kilobits. Again, divide this value by eight and you get 7200 Kilobytes. As you can see, the file is much larger when encoded at 320kbps. Very few users deal with files that are 16 or 320, however. This is because 16 kbps is horrible quality and the quality difference between 320 kbps and 128 kpbs (the going rate for a “CD Quality” MP3). Therefore, most files are encoded between 112 kbps and 160 kbps. In addition to encoding the file at a constant bit rate, which is setting the bit rate to a specific number, encoding can be done at a variable bit rate. This allows the program to decide exactly how each second of music should be encoded, so some sections are at higher rates and some are lower. A variable bit rate encoded file is usually of better quality than its counterpart but the file’s size is hard to determine and is typically larger, which might pose a problem for those who are trying to conserve hard drive space.

You can also rip and encode music in one step, which is easier than doing the two separately. Both MusicMatch and AudioCatalyst allow you to do this and I highly recommend doing so.

Now, you’ve got your MP3 file. One thing I would do now is use Winamp to play the file back, and make sure it sounds ok. I have been using Winamp ever since I started using MP3’s back in the summer of 1997, and it is the most popular and easiest to use program I’ve tried. Other similar programs include Sonique and Real Jukebox.

If the file sounds good, then great; we can move on. If not, go ahead and rip and encode the track again. Occasionally, a poor-sounding MP3 occurs because the ripping process was not done smoothly or your CD-ROM drive has “trouble” ripping tracks. If the problem appears to be the latter, then the only thing you can do is purchase a new drive or send the drive back to the manufacturer if it is still under warranty (I had to do this with my DVD drive).

Let’s assume the file played back to your liking. We now have five viable options:

a. You can leave the file on your hard drive and play it whenever you feel like, using Winamp.
b. You can record the file onto a portable MP3 player.
c. You can use your PC CD-recorder and record (or burn) the file as an audio track onto a CD-R/CD-RW.
d. You can use your PC CD-recorder and record (or burn) the file as a MP3 onto a CD-R/CD-RW.
e. You can use your stand-alone recorder and record (or burn) the file as an audio track onto a CD-R/CD-RW.

If you chose “b”, you must, of course, own a portable MP3 player. Companies such as Sony, Diamond Multimedia, Creative Labs, Samsung, and RCA have portable players on the market. The actual transferring of MP3’s is done by a software program that the player comes packaged with. A cable is used to physically transfer the files to your PC. This can either be a parallel cable (the same as your printer cable; transfers a 3 MB file in 30 seconds) or a USB cable (five times faster than parallel and can also be connected to the PC while it is turned on). Most players released, today, utilize the USB cable, due to its convenience and quick transfer rates. In terms of memory capabilities, a player with 32 MB of RAM can hold about a half hour of 128 kbps MP3’s. This is not enough. I recommend purchasing a player with 64 MB of RAM which has the capabilities for 96 MB. Some of the newer models can upgrade to an even higher amount, which is even better. This additional memory is not the same as the RAM you can purchase for your PC; it carries a much larger price tag of about $2 per MB. Additional recommended features for the portable players include: voice recording, FM radios, and line outputs (which can be used to output the MP3’s onto a separate receiver or even a car head unit).

Choice “c” is currently a very popular choice, since most products that play audio CD’s can play these discs. The only problem is that some older CD players cannot read CD-R and almost all of the older players can not read CD-RW. I’ve only heard a few instances of CD players having trouble with CD-R but, unless the player specifically says so, I would doubt it can read a CD-RW, since the format is different from a CD-R or a CD purchased at Sam Goody (the horror!). To record on a CD-R or CD-RW, I recommend Easy CD Creator by Adaptec. I have found it very easy to use and it works well. The newest version can even make an audio CD directly from MP3 files themselves (normally you first have to convert the MP3 back into a WAVE file*). To begin the process, you first open up the program, make sure it is setup to create an “Audio CD”, drag whichever files you wish to put on the CD (it must be less than 74 or 80 minutes, depending on whether you purchased 74 or 80 minute CD-R/CD-RWs.), click on Create CD and in a short while, depending on the speed of your recorder, you’ll have an audio CD ready to be played!

If you are curious as to what speed recorder you should purchase, think about it this way. A 1X recorder will take 74 minutes to create a CD of 74 minutes worth of music. A 2X = half of 74 minutes = 36 minutes. A 4X = half of 36 minutes = 18 minutes. An 8X = half of 18 minutes = 9 minutes. A 12X = one third of 18 minutes = 6 minutes. So, unless you need the discs at a very fast rate an 8X is fine. I have a 4X recorder and start it up before I take a shower or eat dinner. By the time I return, it’s usually done.

Letter “d”, up until recently, served very little purpose. This was because there was no such product that could read MP3’s directly from an audio CD. However, there are a number of products that can now do this. This includes a few of the cheaper stand-alone DVD players (two brands include Raite and Apex), automobile head units (Aiwa and Kenwood each have one), and a few portable CD players. There is one major benefit to burning the files themselves onto a CD; the fact that a 650 MB CD can hold almost 220 three MB MP3 files. That means you can have 220 songs on one CD! I would definitely pay extra to have a feature like that! To devise an MP3-laden CD, you simply open up your CD Creator program, make sure it is creating a “Data CD”, drag the 200 or so songs you want on your CD, click Create CD and you’re done. Then, just pop the disc into a player that can read ‘em and you’ve got over 10 hours of music on one CD!

Finally, we have letter “e”. This is a lesser known way of getting MP3’s onto an audio CD, but it does work. You can attach your sound card to the input of the stand-alone recorder either by way of an analog or digital connection, provided that your sound card is equipped with the latter and that your stand-alone recorder has inputs for the same type of digital connection. If you have a choice between analog and digital, I recommend going digital. There are two reasons for this: the quality of the final recording is higher with a digital connection and it is easier to make recordings using the digital connection. If you were to devise a MP3 “playlist” and record them onto the stand-alone recorder, the recorder will “know” when to make a new track on the CD, if the digital connection is used. The analog can also do this, provided there is a 3-second differentiation between songs; otherwise, it will merge the two (or more) songs into one track.

Unless you already own one (or don’t own a PC), then I don’t recommend using a stand-alone recorder. When recording from external sources (record player, minidisc player, PC, etc.), it does so at 1X speed, which is 74 minutes. A few have dual CD trays and can copy from CD-to-CD at 2X or 4X, but these typically cost more and still record external sources at 1X. At the minimum, you are looking at $275 for a stand-alone recorder, while an 8X PC CD-recorder can be found for as little as $160!

So, hopefully, after all this work, you have an audio CD which you can playback until your heart’s content!

* This is done by going to Preferences in Winamp, changing the “Output” from “WaveOut” to “Disk Writer”. Now, whenever you play an MP3 with Winamp, instead of playing music, it makes a WAVE file of the song. This takes about a 25% of the time it takes to play the song, so it is very quick. However, after you make the necessary WAVE files make sure you go back to Winamp’s Preferences and change the “output” back to “WaveOut”!).

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