How to Create a Digital Music Library from Your CDs

You can create a music library from your CD and LP collection A digital music management system can be used to create, manage, and listen to a digital music library at home or on the road. This tutorial will walk you through one method of setting up a digital music management system, or DMMS.

Create a central music repository, so as to have an organized system of storing all of your music files. This can be as simple as a single folder in which you will save all your music. You can add the file to My Documents and save it with a distinctive name such as "MUSIC". If you want, you can create additional subfolders in this music repository to categorize each of your songs.

Once you have created the central music folder, you will need to specify the music file format you wish to use. You should use a file format that does not incorporate Digital Rights Management, or DRM. One recommended format is mp3, because of the quality and bit rate of the file format.

Next, organize your mp3 files from your personal CD collection. This may seem like a onerous task, but it is very simple if you have the proper software. One recommended application is CDex, which is a freeware program that you can download at the SourceForge. It enables you to:

*Convert a CD into mp3 files.

*Download all artist and track information from the Internet

*Obtain, display, and/or change ID3 tag information. (See Tips below)

Download and install CDex. Run the program and use it to convert all of your CDs to mp3 format and organize the converted music files in the MUSIC folder.

Select a music player to play all of your music. You may choose to use Windows Media Player, which comes pre-installed on all Windows systems. Alternatively, you may sownload and install other music players such as iTunes by Apple.

TIPS

CDex displays ID3 information on your music player while the song is playing. The ID3 tag contains information about the artist, track, name, genre, and year of the particular song. This information is very important in building an effective digital music management system.