A possible solution for vacationers needing music on the road.

Last week, Mike and I went to the Los Angeles area for a business/pleasure trip. Mike rented a Mustang convertible for the week.

The current model Ford Mustang has two features that make it easy to play your own music on the road:

• A line-in jack for MP3 players, including (of course) iPods. This works with an Aux setting on the stereo system.
• A 6 CD MP3-compatible CD changer. This means not only can you insert a standard audio CD, but you can also play MP3 CDs and load up to 6 of them in the machine at once.

Of course, we both had our iPods with us. But mine had been drained during the flight out to LA and I hadn’t packed the charger. I did have my laptop with me, though, and it contains about 2/3 of the music in my iTunes music library. I also had two blank CDs, which I keep on hand in case I need to pull files off the computer.

So I decided to give the MP3 CDs a try.

Why MP3 CD?

In case you’re wondering why I’d burn MP3 CDs rather than regular audio CDs, the answer is simple: more songs. While a typical audio CD can hold approximately 80 minutes of music — that’s 10 to 20 songs, depending on song length — the same CD can hold 700 MB of computer files — that’s 120 to 150 MP3s depending on song length and compression settings. My two blank CDs would give us up to 300 songs to listen to while we were driving (or should I say, stuck in traffic?) around the Los Angeles area.

And if you’re wondering about music quality, remember that we were driving around in a convertible — not a soundproofed stereo testing room at the local Fry’s Electronics store. We’d be lucky to hear the music at all if we ever managed to get the car up to highway speeds on LA’s overcrowded highway system.

Of course, there is a drawback to this method: iTunes will not include any DRM-protected music on an MP3 CD. So if your iTunes music library includes a lot of music purchased at the iTunes Store, those songs won’t make it to the CD.

Creating the CDs

My Honda has a CD player, but it won’t play MP3 CDs. In fact, I don’t think any of my CD players (other than the ones in my computer) will play MP3 CDs. So I’d never actually created an MP3 CD. But with iTunes, it’s easy.

Start by setting iTunes preferences so it offers to create an MP3 CD.

1. Open iTunes.
2. Choose iTunes > Preferences.
3. In the Preferences dialog that appears, click Advanced.
4. Click Burning to view CD burning preferences.
5. Under Disc Format, select MP3 CD.
6. Click OK to save your settings and dismiss the Preferences dialog.

Next, create a playlist that contains the songs you want to burn onto the CD. It can be a regular or Smart playlist. Don’t worry too much about how many songs are included or whether they’re iTunes Store purchases. Figure on about 150 songs per CD you want to burn; you probably won’t get that many on the CDs (for reasons of space and compatibility), but more is better than fewer.

(I’m not going to explain how to create a playlist. If you use iTunes, you should know how. If you don’t know how, I recommend my Mac OS X book or a visit to the iTunes Help feature.)

Next, burn the CD.

1. In the Playlists list, select the playlist you want to burn to CD.
2. Click the Burn MP3 CD button in the lower right corner of the iTunes window.
3. The status area at the top of the iTunes window instructs you to insert a CD. Insert one.
4. Wait while iTunes checks the CD and then checks the playlist.
5. If your playlist includes songs purchased at the iTunes music store, a dialog like the one shown here appears, telling you how many songs won’t be included on the CD. (You can click the disclosure triangle to see a list of the songs.) Click OK to continue.
6. If your playlist includes more songs than will fit on the CD, a dialog like the one shown here appears. Click MP3 CD.
7. Wait while iTunes burns the first CD. You can see which songs will be burned by looking in the iTunes window for the playlist. Songs that will be burned onto the CD will be listed in black; songs that won’t will be listed in gray.
8. When the first CD is finished, iTunes ejects it. (Or if you’re on a Windows machine, I suppose it tells you to eject it.) If it’s the only CD to be burned, you’re done. If not, the status area at the top of the iTunes window instructs you to insert another CD. Do so. Then repeat steps 7 and 8 as necessary until:
   • You run out of CDs. Then click the cancel button in the status area.
   • You are finished burning music. iTunes stops prompting you to insert CDs.

This worked out very well for us. Although we never figured out how to shuffle songs across multiple CDs in the Mustang’s CD changer, we did get a good variety of music to listen to while we traveled around. And now we have two MP3 CDs we can take on the road the next time we rent a car; I’ve noticed that most car CD players these days support MP3 CDs.

As for the flight back — well I found a car charger for my iPod under the passenger seat of my helicopter and used that to power my iPod. (The helicopter has a DC power outlet like one you’d find in a car.) I didn’t buy the helicopter with the CD changer option.