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How do I make a generic audio CD with Apple iTunes?

Dave, I'm confused. I'm trying to make a music CD with my Mac, but when I just transfer the songs from iTunes onto a disk they don't work in my car or regular cd player. Someone told me that I need to convert them in order for it to work. They gave me the site musicmatch.com but it is for PC and I'm on a Mac.

Dave's Answer:

It took me a few days and some discussion with a Mac guru pal to see the problem in what you've explained here: when you "transfer the songs" in iTunes, I'll bet that you aren't specifying that you want an "audio cd" format disk!

When I make audio CDs, I use Roxio Toast Titanium 6, which is a wonderful program but basically vast overkill for a party dub, and at $75, kinda steep too. It works great for DVDs too, but that's another story entirely!

Anyway, back to the problem. It turns out that iTunes has the ability to burn data disks or audio CDs, and you need to pick which one you want by going into your Preferences within iTunes and clicking on "Burning". You'll see a dialog box similar to this:

As you can see, I've already selected Audio CD as the default format for a burn. I'm betting that you have one of the other formats checked as your default, so change it to Audio CD and click "OK".

With that change made, the CDs you burn from this point forward should work just fine in your car stereo, home stereo, and other computers.

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Comments

Naw-- still doesn't work. My son's generic cd-player and my Volvo 6-changer won't touch an Audio CD burned from iTunes. We share our songs on our (ugh) PC and burn it with Roxio.

It's sad-- we'd rather turn 100% mac and trash our PC forever, but this is one of those odd traits that we currently can't overcome.

Mick

Posted by: Mick at November 24, 2006 1:21 PM

Itunes burn the cd in aiff form and none of my music system, home theater or car stereo or simple cd player playes this cd.

Posted by: Amit at June 8, 2007 9:35 AM

thank you very much i am so happy.

i went through so many cds. i threw away over 20 cds thinking i found out how to fix it.

thanks a lot!!

Posted by: freaknasty713 at August 28, 2007 2:22 AM

thi

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I do have a comment, now that you mention it!