I recently explained connecting a tape or record player to a PC for the purpose of converting songs into digital music files, along with using a "ripping" program such as Roxio Easy Media Creator 8 or Nero 6.0 Ultra Edition.

When ready to rip, play the LP or tape and click the red Record button on your program's control panel. With a CD burner, you can go directly to a disc if you want to save an entire LP or tape without changing anything. Doing so, however, passes over the advantages of transferring first to hard drive and later to CD.

If an LP suffers from snaps, crackles, and pops you can eliminate them via software. If a cassette has a song you'd rather not copy to disc, you can easily delete unwanted tracks. All this, and more, is possible if you copy the source material to your hard drive first.

If the copied material is one large file, you can split it into multiple files before burning to CD. Each file will be a separate track on the CD. The Track Tracker in DAK's Wave MP3 Editor Pro, available from www.dak2000.com makes this easy.

If your source material is on a CD, WinXP users can use Windows Media Player 10 to convert standard CDA (CD Audio) tracks to WMA (Windows Media Audio) or MP3 files.

MP3 and WMA files can be burned to a CD-R disc, but they can't be played back on all CD players. They can be played via the CD drive in any computer, but most older boom boxes, car stereos, and table-top CD players don't recognize digital files. When buying a new CD player, be sure to see if it is digital music compatible.

There are many other types of digital music files, such as ASF and WAV, but not all portable audio players recognize all types of files. However, one format can be changed to another with programs such as Audacity, which is free from www.audacity.com.

The vast array of digital music players and the software with which they can be played, copied, and edited is way too large and complex to be explained here in any detail. Nonetheless, a basic understanding of MP3 technology can be useful.

Simply put, an MP3 is a digitized version of sound that was originally recorded as analog audio. The digital version can then be edited by removing material that is perceived to be too high or too low for the human ear to hear. The more material that is removed, the smaller the resulting computer file and the less space it takes up on a hard drive or in flash memory.

The "bit rate" at which files are transferred is another factor in sound quality - the higher the better.

Purists will argue that anything removed from the analog material leaves a sound of diminished quality - however, most cannot tell an MP3 from the original when played via quality hardware.

Many of the full-length vocal/orchestral songs on my site are also WAVs and can be downloaded to any PC.

As for downloading songs from this site, detailed instructions are included on the various music pages: Swing Era Popular Songs, Country Standards, Gospel & Patriotic Songs, and LatinAmerican Favorites, among many others.