My guide to mp3s

Many people have asked me various questions concerning digital music, that is mp3s, and everything having to do with them. Here I will attempt to answer many of those questions by giving answers to some questions you might have as well as how to get started with mp3s.

Everything that is here is FREE, and I did not pay any money for any of it. Do not let those companies like mp3.com tell you otherwise. Almost everything that you can do with mp3s can be done with free programs. Do not spend money on programs you could be getting for free.

1. Player
2. How to get mp3s
3. Ripping or encoding mp3s from a CD or .wav
4. Decoding an mp3 (turning it into a .wav file)
5. Creating a CD from .mp3, .wav, or .cda
6. Labeling your CDs

1. Player
First and foremost, a program that plays mp3s on your computer is neccessary. My suggestion for this is Winamp. It is freeware, so you are not even supposed to pay for it.

Winamp has new version all of the time so this is the address to their webpage.
http://www.winamp.com
Another player you might want to try is Sonique
http://www.sonique.com

2. How to get mp3s
There are several ways to get mp3s... some are better than others. Probably the best way to get them is via Napster or Mirc. It is also possible to find them on various web sites and search engines such as Lycos.
http://www.napster.com
http://www.mirc.com
http://www.lycos.com

3. Ripping or encoding mp3s from a CD or .wav
There are many programs that will encode .cda files (audio tracks) from CDs and put them into mp3 format. A program that works very well for me is Musicmatch Jukebox.. They are going to try and get you to pay for this one, don't be fooled, get the crack. A free program that also works pretty well is NetEncode. This program also does mp3 decoding.
http://www.musicmatch.com for the latest version, however you may not be able to get this for free
Musicmatch free version
NetEncode

4. Decoding an mp3 (turning it into a .wav file)
I have not done much with this but the program NetEncode seems to be very popular. It is freeware and it has a lot of functionality.

5. Creating a CD from .mp3, .wav, or .cda
There are several ways of making your own CDs that will play in any cd player.
Creating from:

mp3s: You can either decode the mp3s first into a .wav file, then burn it to a CD with a program that comes with your CD-R, such as EasyCDcreator, or you can get a program like Mp3 CD maker, which does the decoding and during to CD all in one step.

.wav and .cda: You can use a regular CD burner program like EasyCDcreator to do this, essencially a .wav and .cda are the same thing only a .cda is on a CD.

6. Labeling your CDs
If you wish to put custom labels on the CDs that you create, there are several programs that will allow you to use your printer to print out your own labels.