How to Burn an Audio CD from .FLAC Files in Windows

November 14, 2019 / By

This tutorial will take you step-by-step through burning (recording) an audio CD from .flac files, using Windows.

Note: although this guide was initially created in 2006, it has been updated to be current in 2019. Also, it’s SO much easier to record an audio CD from .flac files now than it was back then!

  1. Head over to the CDBurnerXP download page then download and install CDBurnerXP – a small and free (but powerful) CD and DVD burning app. The installation is very straight forward – mostly you’ll just click ‘Next’ a few times.
  2. Once the installation has completed, launch the app from your Start menu. When it opens select Audio disc from the main menu and then click the OK button.

  3. Using the panel in the upper-left corner of the window, navigate to the .flac files you want to record as an audio CD. Using the panel in the upper-right corner of the window, select those files then “drag and drop” them into the panel on the bottom of the window.

  4. When you’re ready, click the Burn button.

  5. Now you’ll need to decide if you want a break between the audio tracks or if you want the disc to play as though it’s gapless (for example, a live concert). All of the other settings are good as they are, although you can certainly make any changes you see fit. Once you’ve made your choices, click the Burn disc button.

  6. CDBurnerXP will take a few moments to process the files.

  7. Then the recording process will commence.

  8. Once completed, a confirmation dialog box will appear. Click OK.

  9. That’s it – you’re done!

112 thoughts on “How to Burn an Audio CD from .FLAC Files in Windows”

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  3. hotemetoot

    It might be a lot easyer to use Burrrn, also freeware and it burns flac in a one step program.
    Best choice I know.
    Or use EAC if there are non compliant wavsheets included with the flac tracks, but than you have to decode flac to wav before burning.

    Reply
  10. Munke

    You will not lose any quality in your FLAC files if you burn to CD, but it won’t play in a cd player unless it has FLAC capabilities

    Burning these to DVD is as simple as highlighting them and sending them to the DVD with the right click function. It won’t play in a player that doesn’t support FLAC however.

    You will need to follow the steps above if you want to convert the FLAC to play in any player. Hope this helps!

    Reply
  11. Elvin Sledge

    Your information says FLAC files can be burned using Nero. I have Nero 7 and it does not see the FLAC files. I followed the link to the plugin you suggested and did not find it. And Tech Support at Nero says the poduct does not yet support the FLAC format. Before I add yet another audio player/converter… is the above true?

    Reply
  13. Chris

    Very nice instructions.I downloaded the plugin for nero suite and it did work.Burned and it played the audio cd on my home player and car audio player no problem-thank you!

    Reply
  14. bing suarez

    But what about those ape files? I get them as one large file. I can burn them using sonic into audio cds but only as one continuous song. I need the song breaks. how do i do it?

    thanks

    Reply
  25. Raul

    This tutorial was very good. Although there are other tools which can do the job in just one step, it’s still very useful. This is similar to doing anything on the computer. At first it may take 2 or 3 utilities to get a certain task done, but someone eventually writes a program to do it all for you with one step. Once again, great job!

    Reply
  26. Jules

    Cheers for the info on the nero plugin pack :D I had never heard of Flac files until today LOL and I’m a network engineer LOL

    Reply
  29. Erik Computer Technician Copenhagen

    Of all the time I search the net for help – I found this tutorial first, and it was EXACTLY what I was lookig for.

    BTW, you should mention any CD burning program will do, and I used Nero 7.

    Right now I’m have an old blast of Pat Benatar’s Greatest Hits because of it.

    Thanks again.

    Reply
  31. MJ

    Hi,

    I first want to thank you for the info on converting the flac files so I can burn a cd. I have a question though…I have a number of cds I downloaded which contain only one flac file for the whole cd. Is there a way to separate each track? I have a cue and a flac file for each cd album I downloaded. I’d really prefer to have each track listed, instead of one huge 75 minute track haha!

    Reply
  33. Rachel

    Your tutorial was great, but I still don’t understand something and hope you can help. I want to burn two CDs worth of music in lossless format onto one CD. I converted the WAV files to Apple Lossless format, which I thought took up less room than WAV, but when I tried to fit both CDs onto one, the time was exactly the same as WAV format and I was unable to do it. What am I doing wrong? Thanks!

    Reply

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  47. Nick

    I just burned flac to a cd with nero 9 and i explored the cd and the files show up as 2 KB tracks and im wondering what happened to my flac

    Reply
  48. Brian

    Thanks for this help, we now know how to burn .flac to cd. But can you do the reverse. Say I goto Bestbuy and buy the new Slipknot cd, can I upload cd-to-.flac on the pc?

    Reply
  56. Jonas Johannesen

    NICE ! Thank you so much for this help. You are GOD ! I’ve been looking for easy .flac converting for a long time. This stuff is gold !

    Reply
  60. Bill

    I installed the Nero Megapack and Nero still can’t read the .flac files………

    ………..other than that it’s a good tutorial.

    I can only assume I’m doing something wrong, however I have no trouble converting .mp3 files to audio CDs with Nero 7 even before I installed the Mega Pack.

    Reply

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  65. Matt

    Thanks dude, it’s refreshing to have a tutorial that gets straight to the point in a concise manner. Muchos appreciado!

    Reply
  66. Andrew

    or you could just use dBpoweramp CD Writer.
    1) Install dBpoweramp CD Writer
    2) Drag n Drop ANY audio file onto it (even .mid files works too!)
    3) Press Burn CD!
    4) Wait for conversion and burning to complete…
    5) Done!
    I know technically there’s only 2 steps, drag n drop and press burn cd but i thought the n00bs might appreciate the extra info.
    Ok… Bye!

    Reply
  67. Andrew

    Oh by the way dBpoweramp isn’t exactly free, but heck it can run without installation (just install it in Virtual PC or VMWare and then drag and drop the installed files onto your host machine) and no i am not and don’t work for spoon (dBpoweramp’s developer)!

    Just to let you know, dBpoweramp does a lot more than just burning, you can also use dBpoweramp CD Ripper to rip CDs securely (with quality that some say rivals that of EAC, that also has a n00b proof GUI) and dBpoweramp Music Converter to convert pretty much any audio file to any format.

    Ok now I’ll shut up and go back to work on my “Free PC Software Tips & Tricks” website…

    Reply
  69. Jeff Glotzer

    Nero 7 essentials with template packs, updates for newest Nero 7, and the download Mega Pack, does nothing. Crashes out on flac files on the net. Tried everything, nothing worked.

    Reply
  70. Andrew

    Jeff Glotzer why don’t you just use dBpoweramp? You can find it “on the net” too and it can burn ALL audio files in existence to CDs.
    All you gotta do is “drag n drop” the files you want and press “Burn CD”. Even my grandma could do that.

    For a list of all supported formats go here:
    http://www.dbpoweramp.com/codec-central.htm

    P.S. You know it’s always a good idea to skim through the comments whenever you’re stuck on something. Chances are if you’re having problems other people might be having them too.

    Reply
  71. Tibcsi

    Very Thanks! This howto is great! I have Nero, but it can’t read flac. Winamp convert them to wav files correctly (this is a built-in fuction now, I think.) Thanks again!

    Reply

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  74. tomtom

    hi,
    Is it also posible for us to burn .flac files on a dvd using nero softwear?
    so most of the dvd players can playback the dvd.

    Reply
  79. seiceanul

    thanks man. i just got the original Dark Side of The Moon LP version. my car was waiting for this for a couple of months now :P

    Reply

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  84. kovpack

    the program is ok, but i converted .flac files into .wav with AIMP2. just select files in the playlist, sent them via plug-in to some folder in .wav format and then burn those .wav files on cd.

    Reply
  85. Billybluff

    Being a non-audiophile, why is it important to remove the 2 second intervals between tracks? My cd player (SONY-791) uses this interval to select a specified track

    Reply
  86. Ross

    @Billybluff –

    It’s only important if you’re burning a concert CD, because a 2 second gap interrupts the recording. If you’re burning a CD with just mixed tracks, studio tracks or a “regular” album, leave the 2 second pause.

    Reply
  87. Phillip

    Yep; this works. There is a free burning program called burrrn which you can toss your FLAC files into and it converts them to wav (window wave sound format) just like this program and then burns – so it knocks out the 2nd step. I use FLAC frontend to test my flac files and you can decode from FLAC to wav, or encode from wav to FLAC with this program also. Great if you want to share your good quality audios.

    Both FLAC frontend and burrrn are open source and free, plain interface, light on resources and easy to use. My problem was that burrrn would not accept myFLAC files, even though FLAC frontend told me the files were good. I found the above and finally got my flac files to disc. I used the winamp with the plugin to convert and then just used burrn to put to disc. Many burning programs will handle wav files. Thanks to the author here though as it does work

    Reply
  90. Tabosa

    Amizade, seu método é muito complicado e as pessoas não tem dias inteiros pra fazer tanta manobra. existe um programinha excelente, freewere (de graça): Format Factory que faz essa conversão de FLAC para WAV em segundos sem usar tanta maracutaia… Agora sejamos francos, tente arranjar um keygen ou o serial do perograma: Apen Audio CD Burner, pois ele pega arquivos FLAC e queima já direto para CD Audio… “DIRETÃO”… só que é pago. Já vasculhei toda WEB atrás de um Keygen, serial ou pach… e nada…!!! Estou louco por esse programa mas sou daqueles que acham que de graça é mais gostoso…Valeu…!!!

    Reply

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  93. Agh - Bar - Madonna

    Well, to be truthful, if somebody does not know how to burn ‘their’ .FLACs, it is most likely 9 out of 10 times that they pirated the music and can’t figure out how to burn the CD, but for the honest one, it is just not knowing how to back-convert their .FLAC archives to CD. Thank you, my gratitude does not know the walls of the glass!

    Reply
    1. Ross McKillop

      Agh – Bar – Madonna –

      Actually the live music community (those who record concerts by artists who allow audio taping) use .flac as a standard. So there are a lot of people who download completely legal .flac files and have no idea what they are or what to do with them. This tutorial is aimed for those folks, not for people who ‘pirate’ .flac’s.

      Also, a lot of bands that are now selling their music directly in digital format, offer .flac as a format. It’s becoming a much more popular file format as broadband becomes faster and expands to more and more markets etc.

      Reply
  101. Happy Harry

    Thanks Ross! Been trying to figure out how to record The Wall concerts to CD. I’m so excited to try this when I get chance. Once these FLAC files are converted and burned to CD, can you somehow put them into an MP3 player? But anywho, getting them to CD is my first step. Thanks man!!

    Reply
  103. JustinJ

    Ross thanks so much. You just solved my dilemma in a very short amount of time. Thanks again. Now can rock out to my Springsteen concert CDs at work.

    Reply

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