Real Player 10, like Microsoft Windows Media Player 10, is the latest version of one of the most popular music management programs out there. This program by RealNetworks has, as one of its core features, the ability to copy (“rip”) music directly from your CDs and store them on your hard drive. From there, you can organize them by genre, artist and title, as well as playing the music on your computer or transferring them to an MP3 player. Following the steps below will help you accomplish this.
Difficulty: Easy
Time Required: 5 to 15 minutes
Here's How:
- Insert the music CD into your computer’s CD drive. If a window titled “Audio CD” pops up, select “Take No Action” and click Ok.
- Start Real Player from the Start Menu by locating the icon and clicking on it.
- With the “Music & My Library” tabbed window showing on the screen, under “View” to the left click “CD/DVD”.
- Real Player will read the number of songs on the CD and display them as unnamed tracks. You can either right click on each individual listing and manually name it, allow Real Player to automatically download the necessary information if you are connected to the Internet or select “Get CD Info” under “CD Info” if you need to connect online first.
- Click “Save Tracks” under the Tasks on the left side of the screen.
- A box will box up labeled “Save Tracks”. Check to see that all the tracks you wish to save are selected. If not, or if you don’t wish to save all of them, check the necessary boxes next to each.
- In the “Save Tracks” box section labeled “Save To”, you can leave things as they are or click “Change Settings”. If you change the settings, there are several options which you can do in the “Preferences” window which opens. The next three steps detail those options and what to consider if you are going to change them.
- (a) You can change the the music file format you wish to save the tracks as (MP3 is the most common and universally supported by portable audio players).
- (b) You can change the bitrate (this is the audio quality you save the music as – the higher the number, the better the sound but also the larger each individual file is).
- (c) You can change where you wish to save the files (to change, select “General” in the open window. Under “File Locations”, manually type in a folder name or select “Browse” to find a specific location by navigation. To set a specific order by which all your music is organized by – for example, Genre\Artist\Album –select “My Library” and then “Advanced My Library”. This will provide you a preview of what a typical save to folder will look like, as well as allowing you to change it if needed.)
- If you have made any changes in the “Preferences” window, click “Ok” to accept them. Either way, you are back at the “Save Tracks” screen. Before clicking “Ok” to start, you can either check or uncheck “Play CD While Saving” if you wish to listen to the music as Real Player copies it. If you choose to listen, the music which plays may sound slightly choppy as your computer multi-tasks.
- Having clicked “Ok” to start the copying, the screen shows your track names and two other columns. The one named “Status” is the one to watch. Uncopied songs will display as “Pending”. As their turn comes up, a progress bar will appear to show they are being copied. Once copied, “Pending” changes to “Saved”.
- When all of the songs have been copied, you can remove the CD and put it away.
- Congratulations – You’ve copied music successfully from a CD to your computer using Real Player 10!
What You Need:
- Real Player 10
- A computer to store your music files
- Audio CDs that you wish to convert to music files
