Songs Per CD FAQ: How Many Songs Can I Fit on One CD?

Question: Songs Per CD FAQ: How Many Songs Can I Fit on One CD?

The aging CD is declining in popularity, but can still be a useful solution for backing up multiple albums on one disc using an audio format such as MP3, AAC, WMA, etc. If your car stereo system doesn't support modern features like USB ports, Bluetooth, etc., then using a compact disc with hours of music on it can come in very handy. But, just how many songs can you actually fit on one?

To find out, read this short article.

Answer:

A typical blank compact disc (usually called a CDR) has the capacity to store up to 700 Mb of data. Obviously if you burn uncompressed music (i.e. a normal audio CD) then you will only be able to store around 80 minutes of music. However, if an MP3 CD is created then you will be able to fit many albums onto one disc resulting in hours of music.

How many songs you actually get on a disc can vary and depends on a few variable factors. The main ones being:

• How long the songs are.
• Bitrate used to encode each audio file -- the higher the bitrate used the larger the file will be.
• Audio format -- songs encoded to a lossless format (FLAC, ALAC, etc.) take up much more storage space than ones that have been encoded to a lossy format like MP3, AAC, WMA, etc.

Assuming you have an average compressed (lossy) digital music library that contains songs that have a typical playing time of 3 to 5 minutes, you can expect to store between 100 - 150 songs per CD.