High Impact Missions FAQ

The following documentation discusses how to take an audio CD and place it on your website so that it will be automatically displayed in the audio download page and added to the podcasting stream.

There are many software programs that could be used to do this, but we will use these three:

1. Apple iTunes
2. MP3 File Joiner
3. Multi ID3 Tag Editor
() (http://www.apple.com/itunes/)

First you need to extract the audio from the CD using a process called "ripping". This will take the audio information from the CD and store it as a MP3 file. However, you need to make sure the resulting MP3 files have good audio quality without making the files too large. There is a tradeoff here, and it is suggested that you use 32 kbps (kilo bits per second) Mono, which will give you a single track of 16 kbps.

If you set up Applie iTunes as described below, you will be able to do this with a single click of the mouse. Open iTunes and select the EDIT – PREFERENCES menu. Click on the "Advanced" tab, as seen below.

Select "Custom…" from the "Setting" drop list, and you will shown the following prompt.

Change your settings to exactly match what is seen above. Note that "32 kbps" is recommended. You can change this as you see fit, but just keep in mind that the higher the numbers, the large the MP3 file. Higher numbers might give you better audio quality, but since users will be downloading these files, you do not want to let the files get too large.

Place a CD in your computer and select "Audio CD", as seen below. This will show you a list of the audio tracks on your CD. When you click "Import CD" (top left icon), you will begin to "rip" the audio tracks off the CD on onto your computer.

By default, iTunes will place the ripped files in your C:\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music\Unknown Artist\Unknown Album directory. Once all tracks have been ripped, you can go to that directory to find your files.

Now you have one MP3 file for every track on your CD. During the recording process, the sound engineer can opt to record the message on one large track, or several smaller tracks. If it is the latter, then you will need to combine all the different tracks into a single MP3 file. This can be done with "MP3 File Joiner".

Open MP3 File Joiner, press "Select Files", and navigate to the directory in which your MP3 files are located. Select all of your MP3 tracks. If you have done this correctly, you should see a list of your MP3 tracks in the main window of MP3 File Joiner.

Press "Combine Files". You will then be prompted to name your name your new, large MP3 file. Pick a name that reflects the title of the message, but not a name that is too long.

When the process is complete, you will be notified with a pop-up window.

Press "Clear" to join another set of tracks together, and begin this process again.