For burning music to a physical CD I tend to use iTunes. Mainly because I already have it installed on my PC, all my music is already imported into it and it’s free to use. If you have an iPod or an iPhone then chances are you too will have iTunes. If not, you can download it for free at: http://www.apple.com/itunes/

(Please note that while all care has been taken to ensure this file is malware free, the above link is to an external site that I do not control, so caution should always be used to protect your PC by running a reputable antivirus program).

Firstly, if you are downloading iTunes for the first time and have no music imported, you need to import some music, so to do this the best view to be in is “Playlist” view as this will place all of your songs in a neat and easy-to-read list that you can sort any way you prefer. From this view, select “File” and “Add Folder to Library” (for Windows PCs) and then select the folder that contains your MP3 music files. If you are using a Mac, then select “File” and “Add to Library”.

Once your files have been imported, you will need to create a playlist so that you can burn it to a CD. Unfortunately iTunes does not just let you highlight a bunch of songs and then hit burn. You actually have to organise the songs into a playlist so iTunes knows what order you want the songs burned. In both Windows and Mac versions of iTunes it’s the same method to create a playlist. Select “File”, “New” and then “Playlist”. This will create a new playlist that you can name accordingly.

Once you have created and named your playlist (in this example I have named mine “BAMIX”) you can now start to add songs from your music library to your playlist. Select and highlight the songs you wish to add (I usually click on the first song in the list and then hold down the SHIFT key and then press the down arrow to easily highlight songs within the sequence). Once the songs are highlighted, mouse over them and then click and drag the songs to your playlist.

Click on your playlist and you will now notice that all of the songs you highlighted and dragged are in the list. Take a look through the list to make sure that all of the songs appear in the order you want them to be burned. Ensure that you have inserted a blank CD into your burner and then once you are happy with the order of your playlist, RIGHT click on the playlist name in the left hand column and then select “Burn Playlist to Disc”.

A “Burn Settings” window will appear and the settings you choose here are very important to ensure that the CD works as required. In the “Disc Format” setting, it is important to select “Audio CD” as this will ensure the CD can be played in all CD players. In the “Gap Between Songs” setting, it is imperative that you select “NONE”. If you don’t then you will end up with a pause between your tracks. In some cases it’s ok to not select None, like if you are burning a Body Pump playlist and you actually want a longer gap between your songs. But if you are burning a playlist for Body Jam, then you are definitely gonna want NO gaps. Finally, select the “Burn” button and your CD will start burning.

Once the burning process is complete, your new CD will appear within iTunes. You can simply eject it from your disc drive and take it with you to your car/class/home cd player.