Today's Pointers column is inspired by a lamentation from a veteran Mac user of our acquaintance who expressed some regret over the upgrade to
iTunes 12 (he had jumped several versions in finally doing the upgrade). Among the other changes the recent version had introduced, he was convinced that Apple had removed the ability to burn music CDs, which he still found useful. In case others are laboring under this misconception, this column will show you that yes, CD music burning is still doable in iTunes 12.1 in 2015.
Before we get to the step-by-step part of this column, however, it might be instructive to ask a potentially enlightening question or two, such as "why isn't CD burning a thing anymore?" and "why did Apple remove the CD burner from new Macs" and even "when was the last time I actually
needed to burn a CD?" That last question may give you the answer to the first two, but there is a bit more to it than that.
Whatever happened to CD burning?
When we say "CD burning" here, we do not refer to the phrase in the sense of a crazed mob of anti-intellectuals, but to the process of creating a home-made Audio CD, which is a specific type of CD (there are a number of others, including Data CDs and even Video CDs). The opposite of making a CD full of music was called "ripping" a CD, that is to say copying the music already on an audio CD and storing it on a computer.
This was, at one point, youngsters, the
primarily selling point of iTunes -- as it was the chief way of adding music to one's iTunes library to then transfer to the iPod. People born at the turn of the century may have difficulty believing this, but back in the day you mostly purchased commercially-pressed CDs, and listened to them one at a time on a player. When the iPod and its early forerunners and competitors came along, it not only made music playing even more portable, it allowed users to carry a substantial library of music with them all the time, and play selections from across that entire library even
randomly, like a giant jukebox.
The original iPod
This changed everything.
Later, a college student developed
a network that allowed people to share music files, and discover new bands, and it was called Napster for no discernible reason. It was very popular, but also very illegal -- but the desire to share among people is strong, and so at some level music piracy continues to this day. Apple and others then
introduced stores that saved buyers the step of buying a CD and copying the tracks -- instead, they could download them directly to the computer legally for a modest price. These two things also changed everything.
But before all that, people who wanted to introduce their friends to new music or something different used a variety of methods to do so. People would go to each other's houses and sit around listening to records and conversing about them. Later, people would tape songs off the radio or a turntable using tape systems -- reel-to-reel, 8-track, and most popularly cassettes -- and make "sampler albums" of various tracks to try and hook their friends into liking the same bands. In many ways, this was the start of the iPod shuffle.
Mix tapes back when they were actually tapes
Song sharing is illegal, and it nearly always has been -- but when the aim of the sharer is to expose others to examples (rather than wholesale albums) of new or different bands, most of the copyright holders understood that this was intended to get new customers to pay for more from those artists, and thus looked the other way unless the abuse is very blatant, wide-ranging in scale, or involves any monetary profits.
MacNN thinks it best to stay on the right side of the current law, and longs for the days of listening parties, but we mention the history to better understand the roots of CD burning.
Reasons you may still want to burn a CD in 2015
There are a number of good reasons to burn a CD even now, when the pasttime is in serious decline. Thanks to things like cloud storage and multi-media message sending and streaming subscription music and similar-artist-finding algorithms, there isn't much need to burn a CD if you want to impress a friends with some awesome bands -- you can send them a URL where they can hear at least a portion of that new killer single for themselves, on demand, legally, almost anywhere. Or they can call it up on Spotify. That's not to say, however, that there isn't still a need.
CD mixtape -- handmade artwork was a must
For example, all those music purchases made on iTunes or Amazon or Google Play and elsewhere can be burned to an Audio CD for backup purposes -- look at how much computers have changed in just the last decade, and it becomes clear that another decade from now things like the current formats, stores, and storage devices (physical or virtual) may be very different as well. While a CD is becoming a rarer format, there's ever reason to think devices that can read from them will still be around for a number of years to come, so CDs make a good "archive format" for songs bought digitally.
Apart from the risk of sun exposure, the dye-based home-"burned" CD, if properly stored, should last for decades -- we have a few from the mid-90s that are still readable, though we must admit most of the content is now irrelevant thanks to cheap re-releases or remastered reissues. Commercial CDs when properly stored should last even longer -- we know a collector who has a large number from the 1980s that are still as good as new.
CDs remain a good archive format for original sound recordings as well -- from your Aunt Livinia's oral history of your family to converted cassettes of your old college radio show. Data CDs can be used to preserve old text files and other sorts of documents (though one has to be very vigilant about keeping the format or those files current with modern standards). Burned Audio CDs are sometimes handy in places where you can't plug in an iPhone or iPod, like older car stereo systems. Souvenir CDs of the playlist for people's weddings are still a popular "thank you for coming" idea.
A burning desire
So having been convinced to back up some of your digital music files to CD, the next question is "where did all the CD burners go?" Apple in particular has been aggressive about getting rid of optical drives -- their moving parts were a frequent point of failure, when used they generated a lot of heat that needed to be dispersed, making home DVDs took
forever, and of course the rise of other storage mediums meant fewer and fewer people were routinely burning disks. This allowed Apple to make computers like the MacBook Air, which literally as no space for something like a disk burner.
The Air and other optical-driveless Macs (which is nearly all of them now -- Apple sells one model of MacBook Pro that still has an disk burner included) can use wireless technology and software to "borrow" the optical drive on a networked computer, and nearly all Macs have USB ports capable of adding an external burner to. The cost of a conventional "superdrive" burner is pretty low, so even for only occasional use many might consider getting one. One can even -- finally -- add Blu-ray DVD burning capability this way if desired.
Finally, how to do it
So you have a burner, you have the music, where are the controls in iTunes that used to be so obvious? Don't worry, they're still there, just more hidden than before. Before you even think about popping a blank CD-R into your optical drive, the first step in the process is now creating a playlist of the songs you want to burn. This was at one time optional -- you could just select a batch of songs and right-click to burn immediately -- but now you must create a playlist first, which can be done in a couple of different ways.
One can, as before, select songs from across one's music library and right-click (or choose File/New/Playlist from the menubar) to create a playlist of the selections, or one can create the playlist first and drag songs into it. Songs can be re-arranged into the order you want (remember, though, that an Audio CD is only good for about 72-79 minutes' worth of songs, regardless of what format the are currently in), and once complete, a simple right-click on the playlist (or a menu item under File when a playlist is selected) offers the option to "Burn Playlist to Disc." If there's a burner attached, this option will be available.
Creating a playlist
If your playlist adds up to less than 80 minutes' worth of music, a conventional Audio CD will be burned, converting the files into AIFF format on-the-fly. If you added too many songs, you'll be asked if you want to burn a data CD (for archival purposes, preserves the songs formats up to 700MB worth) or an MP3 CD (songs will be converted to MP3 if they are not in that format already; a typical MP3 CD can hold about 100 or so songs). For the purposes of this Pointers, we want an Audio CD, so trim the playlist down to 79 minutes or less (the total time of a playlist is always displayed next to the title of the playlist).
Rearranging the playlist
While the elements of iTunes have been rearranged a lot from previous versions, the functionality is all pretty much still there, it's just buried since relatively few users need to access it. To our great surprise, using the command "Print" while a playlist is selected even still gives users the option of printing out a CD jewel-case-sized "cover" consisting of either a straight text listing of the songs or a "collage" of album/single art.
Burn Playlist to Disc
So it is possible to preserve song files on Audio CD as a widely-playable music disc, or the files as files on a Data CD for archival purposes in whatever format the songs originally came in. It might be wise to have a "backup" of your purchased files in conventional Audio CD format, since a hundred years from now when you're dead and the music you like is back in fashion, the WAV format or MP4 or whatever you used now may no longer be supported. AIFF files are much more likely to stand the test of time for your great-grandkids to enjoy, and you'll be saving them the hassle of re-buying these songs in the year 2115 when they cost 45 quatloos apiece.
You are certainly not required to burn Audio CDs in iTunes, however. Maybe you don't use iTunes (heretic!) or maybe you already use a different burning program, like
Roxio's Toast, to burn other types of disks. Toast (and many other utilities, such as the free
Burn) can create Audio CDs by simply dragging sound files into the list, rearranging the order to suit (or fit), picking the format and pressing "burn."
Main window of Burn
Whether your mission is to archive your purchased music, create a mix disk for your CD-only pickup truck, or turn your computer-phobic Aunt Levinia on to the wonders of J-pop, audio CDs still should still have a place -- preferably a cool, dry place -- in your media collections. For the sake of history or just for the retro boombox at your friend's 80s-themed wedding, that audio CD may someday be a party on a platter.
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