MP3 players: Getting started with your MP3 player Converting CDs for use on your MP3 player

MP3 players can store dozens of CDs worth of music

Having bought your new MP3 player you need to add music to it.

The easiest way to do this is by converting the CDs that you already own into a digital format that the player can read.

To do this you’ll need a computer – in fact it’s impossible to use an MP3 player at all without one.

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First you copy the music tracks from your CD onto your computer’s hard drive (a process called ‘ripping’). Then you copy the tracks from the hard drive to your MP3 player.

For more details on ripping CDs follow our step-by-step guide.

How to rip CDs

Step 1

Ensure the necessary software is loaded on your computer. There are several programs that can rip music from CDs, but the two you’re most likely to encounter are Microsoft’s Windows Media Player (which comes built into all PCs) and Apple’s iTunes (which you’ll need to use if you have an iPod).

You’ll find Windows Media Player (WMP) by going to Start > All Programs > Windows Media Player. If your PC is more than a couple of years old it would be a good idea to upgrade to the latest version (WMP 11) by downloading it for free from the Microsoft website.

Selecting a high bit rate will give you better sounding music

Macs come with iTunes installed, but if you don’t already have it installed, you can download the latest version (iTunes 10) free from the Apple website.

Step 2

Place your CD in your computer’s CD or DVD drawer and follow the onscreen instructions.

At this point, you can choose the bitrate for your music – this is a guide to the sound quality. The higher the bitrate, the larger the file size of each song.

192kbps is a good compromise between sound quality and file size, as a three-and-a-half-minute song will take up only around 5MB of disk space.

However a lower quality 128kbps should be OK – not many people will notice the difference.

Step 3

The CD tracks should now be saved on your computer. If you’re connected to the internet, your software should recognise the name of the album and its tracks – the newly created music files will be named accordingly. This will save you laboriously typing in album details every time you rip a CD.

Step 4

You can now transfer your digital music to your MP3 player. Simply connect your player to your computer with a USB or FireWire cable. You can now transfer the files by dragging and dropping them from your computer to your player.

iPods and some other players can synchronise with the computer automatically.