A music CD (also called an audio CD) is the kind of CD you normally play in a stereo or CD player. Typically you buy these at a music store. As you’ll learn later in this article, you can also create your own custom music CDs. To listen to a music CD, just put it in your CD drive, label side up, and close the drive door. Then wait a few seconds. Windows Media Player might open and start playing the CD automatically. However, other things could happen:

- A dialog box asks what you want to do: If you see a dialog box, click the Play audio CD using Windows Media Player, then click OK.

- A program other than Media Player opens and plays the CD: If a program other than Windows Media Player opens to play the CD, close that program. Then, do as indicated under the next item.

- Nothing happens: If absolutely nothing happens after you insert an audio CD, or if some other program opened and you closed it, start Windows Media Player. From Windows Media Player’s menu, choose Play  ->  DVD, VCD, or CD Audio.

- Windows Media Player opens: If Windows Media Player opens and starts playing the song, you don’t have to do anything else. Just continue reading on.

After the CD starts playing, you should be able to hear it (assuming your speakers are properly connected and not turned down too far). Use the Volume slider in the play controls to adjust the volume of the music.

Now Playing, Visualizations, and Enhancements

When music is playing, click the Now Playing tab to watch a visualization of the music. The visualization is a pattern of colors and shapes that change in rhythm to the music. You have many visualizations from which to choose. To try a different visualization, first make sure that you’re on the Now Playing tab. Then do whichever is easiest or most convenient for you:

- Click the arrow under the Now Playing tab button and choose Visualizations.

- Or, from Media Player’s menu, choose View  ->  Visualizations.

- Or, right-click on the visualization (or album art) that’s currently visible and choose Visualizations.

Using the playlist

When you’re playing a music CD, the playlist pane to the right of the visualization shows songs from the CD. That pane is optional. To show or hide that pane, click the arrow under Now Playing and choose Show List Pane.

In the playlist pane, you might see the song titles. Or you might just see more generic names like Track1, Track2, and so forth. Most CDs don’t have song titles stored on CD. So the song titles have to be downloaded from the Internet. So you’ll only see song titles if you’re online and the CD you’re playing has song titles stored on the Internet.

Song titles are a form of media information. We’ll discuss how all of that works under “Options for ripping CDs” later in this article.

If you want to listen to a specific song on the CD, just double-click its title in the playlist pane. Or use the Previous and Next buttons in the play controls to highlight the song you want to listen to. To change the width of the playlist pane, get the tip of the mouse pointer right on the left border of the pane, so the mouse pointer turns to a two-headed arrow. Then drag left or right.

Using Enhancements

While you’re listening to music and are in the Now Playing area, you can also use Enhancements to adjust the sound and perform other tasks. The Enhancements pane is shown under the visualization. In that example I’m showing the graphic equalizer.

To show or hide the Enhancements pane, choose View  ->  Now Playing Layout  ->  Show Enhancements from Media Player’s menu. When the Enhancements pane is open, you can choose which type of enhancement you want to see. To cycle through the available options, click the Previous or Next button in the upper-left corner of the pane. To choose a specific enhancement, right-click an empty area in the Enhancements pane and click the enhancement you want to view. Your options are summarized here:

- Color Chooser: Change the color of the playlist pane.

- Crossfading and Auto Volume Leveling: When Crossfading is turned on, one song gradually fades out while the next song fades in. Auto Volume Leveling keeps songs at roughly equal volumes.

- Graphic Equalizer: Adjust the relative strengths of low, middle, and high tones. Optionally, click Default and choose a music type such as Rock or Classical. Click Reset to return to the default settings.

- Media Link for E-Mail: Allows you to e-mail a portion of online media to a friend. This does not work with songs stored on your local PC, nor does it send an actual file to the recipient. It simply sends a link to the online content.

- Play Speed Settings: Use this to adjust the play speed of content. This option only works when playing .wma, .wmv, .wm, .mpe, and .asf files. Careful with this one. You don’t want all your albums sounding like The Chipmunks!

- Quiet Mode: Adjusts the audio dynamic range of music (the difference between the loudest and softest sounds). You’d most likely use this option when listening to headphones or watching a movie in Media Player.

- SRS WOW Effects: When activated, SRS WOW effects add depth to your music. This one is definitely worth turning on and trying out if you have good speakers attached to your system.

- Video Settings: Adjust the brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, and size of video when viewing a movie or video in Media Player.

Like most panes, you can change the height of the Enhancements pane by dragging its upper border up or down.

Stopping a CD

When you’ve finished listening to a CD, click the Stop button in the play controls. To eject the CD, choose Play  ->  Eject from Media Player’s menu, press Ctrl+J, or push the Eject button on your CD drive.

Play CDs automatically with Media Player

If you want to ensure that Media Player opens and plays music CDs automatically, you need to make Media Player the default player for CDs. Here’s how:

1. Click the Start button and choose Control Panel.

2. Click Hardware and Sound.

3. Click AutoPlay.

4. Next to Audio CD, choose Play audio CD using Windows Media Player.

5. If you also want Media Player to play DVDs automatically, choose Play DVD Video using Windows Media Player.

6. Click the Save button.

7. Close Control Panel.

From that point on, whenever you put a music CD in your CD drive, Windows Media Player should open and play the CD automatically.