Making MP3 sounds yours

By MICHAEL FOREMAN

Creating good old-fashioned analogue CDs from digital MP3 files might strike you as an odd thing to do at first - a bit like turning an omelette back into an egg - but the more you think about it, the less daft it seems.

For a start, it's a convenient way of producing your own compilation albums, whether the tracks originated from the net or your existing collection of CDs.

Secondly, if you don't own an MP3 player, you are no longer restricted to playing your digital collection on your PC.

Finally, even if you do have an MP3 player, the sound system in your car or living room will allow others to hear your tunes.

The first thing you will need to "burn" your own is a CD writer drive and a supply of blank recordable disks.

Most drives support both the CD-R and CD-R/W format, but CD-R disks are cheaper and are more suitable for music CDs.

CD-writer drives also come into two types, internal and external. External drives (about $600) are easier to install, they usually plug straight into a USB port, but internal drives ($400-$500) offer better performance.

For our money, an internal drive is the way to go unless your PC is an "all-in-one" design or other types that do not include extra disk drive bays.

The more expensive ($999) Hewlett-Packard 9900ci DVD/CD-writer combo we tested comes with the MusicMatch Jukebox CD burning software, which converts CD tracks to MP3 files and MP3s to CD audio tracks.

Like most programs of its type, as soon as it is installed MusicMatch wants to know where you keep your MP3 files.

You can either allow it to search for them automatically or, if you prefer, specify one or more folders.

Creating my first CD from MP3s was remarkably simple.

After double-clicking on 15 tracks, I clicked the CD-R button and the program told me my compilation would take up 77 per cent of the available space on the blank disk in the drive.

Clicking on another button started the recording process, which took about an hour to complete.

The MP3 file format is billed as "near CD-quality," so I was not expecting the best sound quality, but when I played my disk on my audio system I could not tell the difference from an ordinary CD.