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The
process of converting audio tracks to MP3 files is called RIPPING. An
alternative method of obtaining MP3 songs is downloading them from the
Internet. There
are various music subscription services that allow you to search and purchase
individual songs or entire albums. These songs are then downloaded and
stored in some type of digital media (hard drive, CD, MP3 Player, flash
cards, etc) These
MP3 tracks have additional information stored within the file called
meta-data. This data can contain information such as the title of the
song, the artist, name of the album, track on the CD, and much more.
The metadata stored on these MP3 tracks are called ID3 Tags. The
Pontiac Audio system is only capable of reading ID3 V1.0 or V2.0 tags.
If you burn your CD with either no ID3tags or a different version, the
Pontiac Audio systems will not be able to read all of the information stored
in the ID3 tag. I always use V1.0 and it works fine. The
Pontiac Audio systems can read data CDs containing MP3 files. The type
of CD media recommended is CD-R or CD-RW. From experience, the most
widely supported type is CD-R. A CD can store between 700-800 MB of
data. This translates to about 10 hours of music per CD. |
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Pontiac MP3 TRACK AND FOLDER
STRUCTURE The
Pontiac Audio systems supports two different modes for MP3 disc playback: MP3
track mode (system default) and MP3 folder mode. In track mode,
the Pontiac Audio system is capable of reading up to 255 tracks in the root
folder (tracks are numbered sequentially from T1-T255). If more than
255 songs are burned onto a CD, the Pontiac Audio systems will only recognize
the first 255. In
folder mode, the Pontiac Audio systems support a folder structure consisting of
up to 8 levels of folders. A total of 50 folders can be stored below the root
folder with up to 50 tracks in each folder. Creating CDs with a single
level of folders is recommended to simplify navigation. . |
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Ripping
CDs Windows Media Player (WMP) is such
a program. It is included with all recent Microsoft operating systems or can
be downloaded for free from Microsoft’s web site. Another Free Ripper
that is highly recommended is Apples iTunes. In addition to
Ripping the CDs, the iTune has the ability to edit the ID3tags and burn MP3
data disks all in a single application. This is such a powerful tool
that I will cover it in detail later in this article. Launch Microsoft’s Window Media
Player and from the WMP tool bar, select Tools à
Options à Rip Music tab. Under Rip settings, chose mp3 for
the file format and select 192 bps as the audio quality by moving the pointer
on the slide bar near the bottom of the options pop-up to the
left. This is an acceptable quality and provides about 80 MB per album
(equivalent to approximately 10 albums per CD). Other recommended
options are to select the “Rip CD when inserted” and “Eject CD when ripping
is complete”. This will speed up the process of ripping a large number
of CD by allowing the user to insert CDs and continue to work while the PC
automatically rips the CD. When the process is completed, the CD is
ejected and another one can be inserted and will start to rip automatically. Under the same tab, select File
Name and in the window that appears, choose convention to be “track number”,
“song title” “artist” and “album”. The result is one subfolder per album
within a folder having the artist's name and containing all the tracks in
order they appears on the audio CD. Information on each track of the
CD is stored on hidden files in an audio CD. This information contains
things like the song title, artist, album title, track number, time duration,
etc. The Ripper software you use will read this information and attach
this information to the converted MP3 song in the form of an ID3tag.
Different Rippers default to different IDtag version but most use
ID3V2. As previously mentioned, the Pontiac Audio systems only supports
tags written in V1.0 or V2.0. To convert the ID3 tags to V1 and make
any corrections necessary, you will need to use an ID3 editing software or
iTunes. |
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Fixing
ID3 Tags So
now, you have a collection of MP3 songs that you have ripped or
downloaded. However, the ID3 tag information may not be what you think
it is. Different CD rippers may use different versions of the ID3 tags
(currently there are three versions available V1, V2 and APECV2. Also,
not all of the CDs provide the same level of information. Some CDs may
even contain completely inaccurate information. If you want the Pontiac
Audio systems to properly identify the song title, artist and album, you may
need to edit the ID3 tags and convert them to V1 or V2. Remember that
the Pontiac Audio systems only supports V1 or V2 formatted ID3 tags. This
procedure can be very time consuming if you have thousands or even hundreds
of files. It can be even more complicated if your songs come from
different sources such as downloaded music, older CDs, or CDs from smaller
labels. Remember this is optional and not required unless you want the
track, album, song title and artist information to be correct. There
are many tools available to edit ID3 tags. A simple to use shareware
version is MP3Tag which may be downloaded from http://www.mp3tag.de/en/download.html. Apple's iTunes also has an ID3tag editing
function. Whichever
one you choose, make sure that it is capable of writing a V1 or V2 ID3
tag. Some will burn V2 by default. The Pontiac Audio systems only
supports V1 and V2 and will not support an ID3 tag written in other
versions. After downloading the software, install the application and
launch it by double clicking on the icon. To
begin, select fileà change Directory. Browse to your music
folder. In a few minutes (depending on how much music you have, the
information for all of you songs will appear in the main panel on the right. The information contained in the ID3 tag
will display on the right panel.
Next,
select your file reading and writing options. We want to be able to
read everything, but we only want to write ID3V1 or V2 tags. I prefer
to use V1 since most MP3 CD players will recognize this version. From the Tools menu, select options.
Under tags, select each of the options and choose the options shown below.
Correct
the fields on the left Panel for each song as necessary and then select all
of the songs that need to have their tag information updated. You can
select multiple consecutive files by selecting the first song and holding the
shift key while you select the last song in the series.
Non-sequential files may be selected by holding down the CTRL key and
selecting individual files. When
ready, select FileàSave Tag. If the options were selected properly as
indicated above, all ID tags will be rewritten in V1 format. Remember
that this program is shareware and if you use find it useful, you should make
a donation to the author through paypal. |
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Burning MP3 CDs Now,
you have your MP3 songs, you’ve fixed the tags on the songs you care about
and you are ready to burn them on CDs. The first step should be to
organize your music. The Pontiac Audio systems supports two
different file structures. This is where you will need to decide which
songs you are going to put on each CD, and whether you want to use a single
directory or a directory structure underneath a root directory. Most
media players support creating playlists. Create a playlist for each CD
and drop the songs that you want onto each playlist. Make sure you
constrain yourself to the limits imposed by the physical media and the Pontiac
Audio systems’ file structure limits. Most CDs are limited to 700-800
MB, and the Pontiac Audio systems can only support 255 tracks in a single
directory or 50 subdirectories underneath a root directory with no more than
50 tracks in each directory. Pontiac
makes the following recommendations for burning MP3 songs on a CD: •
Make sure the MP3 files are recorded on a CD-R or CD-RW disc. •
Avoid mixing standard audio and MP3 files on one disc. •
Create a folder structure that makes it easy to find songs while driving.
Organize songs by albums using one folder for each album. Each folder or
album should contain 18 songs or less. •
Avoid subfolders. The system can support up to 8 subfolders deep, however,
keep the total number of folders to a minimum in order to reduce the
complexity and confusion in trying to locate a particular folder during
playback. •
Make sure playlists have a .mp3 or .wpl extension (other file extensions may
not work). •
Minimize the length of the file, folder, or playlist names. Long file,
folder, or playlist names or a combination of a large number of files and
folders, or playlists can cause the player to be unable to play up to the
maximum number of files, folders, playlists, or sessions. If you wish to play
a large number of files, folders, playlists, or sessions, minimize the length
of the file, folder, or playlist name. Long names also take up more space on
the display, and might not fully display. Track names longer than 32
characters or four pages are shortened. Parts of words on the last page of
text and the extension of the filename may not display. •
Finalize the audio disc before you burn it. Trying to add music to an
existing disc can cause the disc not to function in the player. Apple's
iTunes supports burning both audio and data discs, however, earlier versions
of WMP only supported burning audio CDs and could not create a data disc.
WMP version 9 now supports burning data disks. An alternative is to use third party CD
burning software. Again, there are many to choose from; I chose Roxio
Easy Creator Suite. To burn a CD using Roxio, follow the procedure
below:
Note:
you must select the option to close the CD when finished. This will
make the CD read only. Failure to do this may result in problems
playing the CD. One
last note, although you may be the most creative person on earth and can
create the best looking CD labels, refrain from using paper labels on your
CDs. They can heat up inside the Pontiac Audio systems, start to peel
off and completely ruin your Pontiac Audio systems. The best way to
label your CD creations is with a good old fashioned felt tip marker. ITunes to the rescue Apple
has released an application that is available for free from their download
site. It runs on Windows as well as Macs and, as mentioned before, it
allows you to RIP, convert, edit ID3 tags, and organize your music into
playlists and burn MP3 data discs as well as audio discs. It is by far
one of the most powerful media management applications available. Before
getting started, there is a little housekeeping that will make things easier
later on. ITunes lets you import songs from various formats as well as
ripping songs directly from CDs. ITunes default format is an Apple
proprietary format called AAC. To make things easier for us, we will
want to change this to MP3.
Ripping
songs from an audio CD using ITunes,
iTunes
imports any joined songs as one track. To change back to importing the songs
separately, select the joined songs and choose Advanced > Un-join CD
Tracks.
The
display area at the top of the iTunes window shows how much time it will take
to import each song. To cancel importing, click the small X next to the
progress bar.
By default, iTunes plays songs
while they're being imported. You can click the Pause button to stop
playback, or continue to use ITunes for other tasks; the import will
continue. You can also stop iTunes from playing songs automatically by
deselecting the "Play songs while importing" checkbox in the
Advanced pane of iTunes Preferences (in the Importing section). Importing
MP3 and other music files into iTunes. When iTunes is installed, it will
optionally search all of your attached hard disks and CDs for every audio
format file it knows and will list it in the iTunes library. It will
also attempt to categorize the files by album or genre if the information is
available. The songs will remain in their native format and can be
played by iTunes. However, to burn these songs or to
edit their ID3tag information, the songs must first be imported into
iTunes. Before you do this, make sure you have configured your
preferences as described in the getting started section above. To import the songs
Editing song information within
iTunes All of the information about a
song is not always correct. Some older CDs or CDs from smaller labels
may have the song titles or tracks confused. As a result, the name and information
on a song maybe sometimes be incorrect. To edit the information, right
click on a song and select get info. This will access a database on the
internet that will retrieve all of the know information about the track
selected. if the information is incorrect, you can edit it in this
screen. This information will be used to create the ID3 tag
information. If the information is wrong here, the information
displayed on your Pontiac Audio systems may not match what you think you are
listening to. Converting ID3Tags using iTunes To create the ID3 tag or convert
it to V1 or V2,
To
burn an MP3 data disc using iTunes
Playing your CDs Now all of the hard work has been
done and you are ready to start enjoying some tunes. You have your 6
MP3 CDs in your hands with over 60 hours of your favorite music. Let's
get Rocking! On the Pontiac Audio systems,
press the LOAD button to begin the CD load sequence and wait for the message
to insert disc (Six-Disc CD Player) when the radio prompts. Insert the CD printed side up. The player
pulls it in, and the CD-R should begin playing. If the ignition or radio is
turned off with a CD-R in the player, it stays in the player. When the
ignition or radio is turned on, the CD-R starts to play where it stopped, if
it was the last selected audio source. As each new track starts to play, the
track number and song title displays. The CD player can play the smaller 3
inch (8 cm) single CD-Rs with an adapter ring. Full-size CD-Rs and the
smaller CD-Rs are loaded in the same manner. Notice: If you add any label to a CD, insert more than
one CD into the slot at a time, or attempt to play scratched or damaged CDs,
you could damage the CD player. When using the CD player, use only CDs in
good condition without any label, load one CD at a time, and keep the CD
player and the loading slot free of foreign materials, liquids, and debris. Do not add any
label to a CD, it could get caught in the CD player. If a CD is recorded on a
personal computer and a description label is needed, try labeling the top of
the recorded CD with a marking pen. Tracks recorded to the CD-R are
played in the following order: •
Play begins from the first track in the first playlist and continues
sequentially through all tracks in each playlist. When the last track of the
last playlist has played, play continues from the first track of the first
playlist. •
Play begins from the first track in the first folder and continues
sequentially through all tracks in each folder. When the last track of the
last folder has played, play continues from the first track of the first
folder. When play enters a new folder, the display does not automatically
show the new folder name unless the folder mode was chosen as the default display.
The new track name displays.
Once the disc has been scanned,
the player defaults to playing MP3 files in order by artist. The current
artist playing is shown on the second line of the display between the arrows.
Once all songs by that artist are played, the player moves to the next artist
in alphabetical order on the CD-R and begins playing MP3 files by that
artist. If you want to listen to MP3 files by another artist, press the
pushbutton located below either arrow button. The CD goes to the next or
previous artist in alphabetical order. Continue pressing either button until
the desired artist displays. To change from playback by artist
to playback by album, press the pushbutton located below the Sort By label.
From the sort screen, push one of the buttons below the album button. Press
the pushbutton below the back label to return to the main music navigator
screen. The album name displays on the second line between the arrows and
songs from the current album and begins to play. Once all songs from that
album are played, the player moves to the next album in alphabetical order on
the CD-R and begins playing MP3 files from that album. To exit music
navigator mode, press the pushbutton below the Back label to return to normal
MP3 playback. If you want to play songs using
the Shuffle or Random feature, press the button underneath the RDM
label. With the random setting, MP3 files
on the CD-R can be played in random, rather than sequential order, on one
CD-R or all discs in a six-disc CD player. To use random, do one of the
following: 1. To play MP3 files in random
order from the CD-R that is currently playing, press the pushbutton
positioned under the RDM label until Random Current Disc displays. Press the same
pushbutton again to turn off random play. 2. To play songs from all CDs
loaded in a six-disc CD player in random order, press the pushbutton
positioned under the RDM label until Randomize All Discs displays. Press the same
pushbutton again to turn off random play. Once a song is playing, the file
name will appear in the display. To view
the artist or album name press the info button on the left side of the
display and then push the appropriate button underneath the tabs in the
display. Congratulations you now have over
60 hours of music to listen to on your Pontiac Audio systems. Now crank
up the tunes and go for a ride. |
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