Secret Tips For…

Cdburnerxp

Burn files across multiple discs

Cdburnerxp ( https://cdburnerxp.se) is an excellent free CD burner that you can use to create audio, video and data discs. One of its best features is that it lets you save very large folders across multiple CDS, helping you overcome the 700MB limit on a standard CD. To do this, click ‘Data disc’ in the main menu (you’ll see this whenever you open the program), drag and drop the files you want to burn and click Disc, then ‘Disc spanning’. In the pop-up window (see screenshot below) select the size of the disc you’re using. Next, select ‘Use as few discs as possible’ if you want the software to split large folders between discs (or ‘Do not split folder contents unnecessarily’ if you don’t) and click Split. Cdburnerxp will then analyse and arrange your files and tell you how many CDS you need.

Balance sound on a music CD

Burning a CD compilation of your favourite songs might make a long journey go faster, but it can leave you constantly adjusting the volume if some tracks are louder than others. To fix this, you need an additional program called Foobar2000, which you can download for free from www.

foobar2000.org/download. Install Foobar2000 and open it, then click File, Add Files and select the tracks you want to burn to CD. Once your files have been added select them all (Ctrl+a), then right-click on any track and click Replaygain followed by ‘Scan per-file track gain’. When the process has finished, click Update File Tags to apply the audio levels to each track.

Go back to Cdburnerxp, click ‘Audio disc’ in the main menu and click Settings (the gear icon). Click the Audio Options tab, select ‘Use Track Gain, or Album Gain if not available’ and click Apply, then OK. Drag and drop the audio files you selected in Foobar2000 into your burn list and click Burn. Cdburnerxp will apply the audio levels to create a CD with consistent volume.

Copy any audio CD

Making exact duplicates of the CDS in your collection is a great way to keep your original CDS scratch-free. Place the disc you want to duplicate into your PC’S CD drive and click ‘Audio disc’ in Cdburnerxp’s main menu, then click File, Import and Audio-cd. Choose your CD drive and click OK. Once the program has exported all your tracks, swap the CD for a blank disc and click the Burn button to create the duplicate.

Create an audio (and data) CD

CDS usually contain music or data but not both. With Cdburnerxp you can create a ‘mixed mode’ CD that holds audio and data on a single disc. Click ‘Audio disc’ from the main menu and select the songs you want to burn. Click Burn and tick ‘A pause for 2 seconds between all tracks’, then untick both ‘Finalize disc’ and ‘Enable Cd-text’ and click ‘Burn disc’. Once the burning process has finished, go back to Cdburnerxp’s main menu and click ‘Data disc’. Select the files you want to burn, but this time tick the ‘Finalize disc’ box. Burn the disc and you will end up with a CD you can play on your stereo but which also contains files and folders you can access on your PC.