Build an inspired music collection with your PC

Music lovers, listen up. The most important piece of equipment in your home may no longer be your stereo system.

It may be your PC.

What's this, you ask? How can that boring beige box in the den used for e-mail and the kids' homework help enhance my enjoyment of music?

"Instead of searching for a particular CD, my computer allows me to have all of my music in one place," says Brandy Tanenbaum, a mother and self-professed Neil Diamond fanatic.

"I like to be organised, so I sort all of my downloaded music by artist or genre, and then I can quickly burn a mixed CD for the car or copy songs over to my portable music player," she adds. "And I love shuffling songs, too."

But some music fans are still hesitant to make the switch to their PC to store, organise, or play music.

"I just don't have time to start putting music on the computer or downloading new songs," says Teresa Martin, whose three children enjoy listening to kids' CDs while they play. "But," she concedes, "It would be wonderful if it was already set up for me—it's really just a time issue."

Step 1: Let's get it on - storing music on the PC

Take advantage of your computer's huge hard drive and use it as a storage solution for your music. You can easily save tens of thousands of songs on your computer and organise them into searchable folders and custom playlists. If your life was one long movie, consider your computer the perfect platform to play its entire soundtrack.

You can transfer music onto your PC in one of three ways: copy ("rip") music CDs, download new music from the Internet, or back up your old records and tapes.

Rip CDs: A program, such as the free Windows Media Player 11, can be used to convert CDs into high-quality WMA (Windows Media Audio) or MP3 files. Simply pop a music CD into your computer's CD- or DVD-ROM drive and in Windows Media Player, click the Rip tab at the top of the screen to begin the process—it only takes a couple of minutes per CD. If you're connected to the Internet, the program automatically pulls up the artist, album, and track information.

Download music: Thanks to the Internet, long gone are the days of buying a music CD only to find two good songs out of 18. Now you can shop online 24x7 and preview before buying. There are dozens of online music services, including DigiRama, and Coke Tunes New Zealand.

Convert old records and tapes: If you can't part with your old vinyl or cassettes (college mixed tapes anyone?), you can create digital audio files of them. All you need is a stereo system (with a turntable or cassette deck) with a line-out jack and an inexpensive cord referred to as "RCA-to-mini."

Click here to read more about backing up records and tapes.

Step 2: The immaculate collection - organizing and playing music

Now that you've got all of this great music on your PC, you can use Windows Media Player to easily organise and play songs.

Open Windows Media Player and click the Library tab. Along the left-hand side of the screen you will have access to all your music (where all of your songs will be listed alphabetically), but underneath this header are the other categories in which your music is listed: by artist, album, songs, genre, year released, and rated songs.

See a song title you like? Double-click its name and it'll start playing.

You can also create special playlist and name them according to topic and occasion, such as Kids’ Car Music, Party Trax, Relaxation Classics, Workout Mix, Dinner Party Tunes, and so on.

Having all of your music in one place is also handy for when you want to import songs to spice up a photo slide show.

Invest in a decent set of computer speakers and your PC can be your very own jukebox during a house party or casual get together.

Step 3: I like to move it - copying and burning music

Speaking of house parties, consider burning a CD of your favourite songs to play in your family room's DVD player (most can read MP3 or WMA files) if there is no PC handy or when creating the ultimate mix for long car trips.

Open Windows Media Player and click the Burn tab.

Pop in a blank disc and choose which songs or playlists to copy.

If you have a portable audio player, connect it to your PC's USB port and then click the Sync tab in Windows Media Player to choose which songs to copy over to the device.

Article written by Marc Saltzman and adapted from an original piece from Microsoft Home Magazine.