Burning CD's - How many tracks fit on one CD?

Del · Post by **Del** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 9:34 pm

I know this is probably a dumb question. But How can I tell, in advance, how many tracks will fit on a CD that I am about to burn? I keep getting an error message and a Burn Failed message because there are too many tracks. Do I keep removing one song at a a time until I fill the CD perfectly? That would take forever. When I select the songs I want to burn, the bar at the bottom left tells me that 25 files add up to 76MB's. A Standard CD-r holds about 700MB's. Why am I getting overburn and Burn failed messages? All the music files are stored in MP3 format. Forgive my ignorance, I am relatively new to the Media Monkey and computer music world. The help files con't seem to give the answers I need. Del.

alabama · Post by **alabama** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 9:51 pm

first off, i don't have the answers your looking for. having said that, i can answer the part of your question. There isn't a specific number of tracks that will fit on a CD. It's just based on the size of the data you want to burn. you might fit 20 .wma files on a CD but i just burned an MP3 CD with 187 tracks on it. it's just 700MB and the CD doesn't care how many times you slice it.

Do you have another burning program? is it working properly? this would help determine if it's a software or hardware issue. if it's hardware, thats pretty easy. 50$ for a CD-RW. if it's a software issue, i don't know if uninstall/reinstall would resolve it or if you'd troubleshoot further.

Del · Post by **Del** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 10:05 pm

Thanks for responding Alabama. I have made copies of original CD's with Media Monkey and the built in XP burning software. That worked fine though. I was hoping there was a way to tell when you are reaching the point at which a CD becomes full. I used to have Nero on my old computer. It showed a little bar that implied how full the CD would be. No such thing in MM I guess. I did select the option to Write CD Text on the Burn. Could that take up so much space I can't fit 26 songs? Also, I think I have it set to burn in a format that will play on any cd player. Does that make a difference? Right now I am trying to burn a cd. It gave me the Too Much Data error but gives the option to overburn. I said burn it anyway. I hope my burner survives. Del

julzcompufreek · Post by **julzcompufreek** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 10:14 pm

Cds that play on normal CD Players are called Audio CDs. The amount of tracks you can fit on the CD depends on the length of the songs, not the size.

Usually CDs have a total of 700MB and 80 minutes space. So if you wanted to burn an audio CD, your tracks in total would not be able to exceed 80 minutes.

MP3 Cds are the other alternative, these dont play on all CD players unless they support MP3 CDs. The amount of MP3 songs you can store depends on the total size (in MB) of all the songs. So on a normal CD (which is about 700MB) you would only be able to store no more than 700 MB of mp3s.

Currently you can only burn Audio CDs with MediaMonkey.

I hope this answers you Question.

Del · Post by **Del** » Sun Sep 25, 2005 10:30 pm

Thanks Julian. I didn't know that I didn't have a choice on what kind of CD to burn. I also didn't know that one CD would take 80 minutes of songs. I guess I should have read the CD itself. It says 80 minutes right on it. Duh! Thanks, for the info. I bet I am probably making a coaster as I write this. I will have to keep trying till I get it right. It would be nice if all CD burning programs told you when the disk has reached it's limit. Before you actually begin to burn the CD! Thanks again, Del.

rovingcowboy · Post by **rovingcowboy** » Mon Sep 26, 2005 10:01 am

good rule of thumb is to put no more then 21 songs in the playlist then check the size

that will tell you how much you have to remove or can add.

how ever if your making an audio cdrom to play on a cheap hand held cdrom player or an old cheap one.

those might not read the full 700 mbs as the first cdrom players were only able to handle 650 mbs on the cdrom disks

also if you use short songs like 2:30 time in stead of the longer ones they record now that can be 5 minutes or more then you will beable to get some were around 27 songs on the cdrom. BUT that in its self has another problem with some cdrom players. they will work in the computer just fine but in some portables and car cdplayers.

that 27 songs might only play 20 of them. reason being the leasor on the cdrom player cant see the gap between some songs when there is that many on the cdrom disk.

adding 2 seconds of blank space between the songs helps but does not fix it. useing no more then 21 songs on a cdrom will fix it even though you have more room on the cdrom what good is it if you fill it up with songs but never hear 7 or 8 of the songs?

so just put no more then 21 songs on it so there is a big enough gap between them and you should hear them all.

the Mp3 cdroms are recorded as data disks. and you are able to get up to 10 hours of songs on them how ever that is at a very small bit rate for the mp3's and that means you get bad sounding and messed up songs.

the advrage leanght of time for mp3 data cdroms is about 6 to 7 hours for good sounding songs with good bit rates on them. for best sound on mp3's i suggest using nothing smaller in bit rate then 196bps as i have had messed up songs with smaller bit rates.

good luck on it . you will need a program like cdburnerXpPro for making the data cdroms.

as data cdroms are like backing up files on your hard drive.
so you need a program that can back up your files the cdburnerXp Pro is free

soon they will get the monkey to understand data cdroms