All you need is a CD writer drive, also known as a burner. Figure on spending $150 to $350. You'll have two basic options: an internal burner, which you install in an empty drive bay of your computer, or an external model, which sits beside your computer and connects by cable. Internal burners are often faster and cheaper, and installing them is easier than you might think — it can take as little as 10 minutes. But if the thought of taking the back off your computer makes you queasy, go with an external burner. They're the very picture of plug-and-play technology. Some state-of-the-art burners, meanwhile, double as DVD-ROM drives, giving you all the more reason to buy one. Toshiba's SD-R 1002, an internal burner of this ilk, sells for about $350.

All else being equal, you'll want one that copies quickly — you don't want to spend a lot of time waiting for your CDs. Burners generally do their job in much less time than it takes to play a CD. A burner with a speed of 4X, for example, will record music four times as fast as it takes to play the songs. So you'll record a 72-min. CD in 18 minutes. A 12X burner, on the other hand, will do the job in six minutes. You do pay for speed, though, and some old computers can't keep up with a really fast burner. Check the system requirements; if you try to record faster than your computer can read, you'll end up with little more than a shiny cocktail coaster.

Once you're hooked up, you'll weep at the possibilities that await you. Say you bought The Tokens' Greatest Hits because you had to have The Lion Sleeps Tonight. You soon discover that The Lion Sleeps Tonight is in fact the only decent song the Tokens ever recorded, and the CD is eating up precious shelf space on your CD rack. Simply slip that disc into your computer's normal CD-ROM drive and launch the software that came with your burner. Many devices come with popular Adaptec software, which simplifies the process. Or you can download a free program like MusicMatch Jukebox.

Most burning software will take you by the hand and walk you through the process. Check off the songs you want from the disc‹in this case just one, The Lion Sleeps Tonight — and then repeat the process with other CDs. Once you've picked out the maximum 74 minutes of music, arrange the songs in the order you want, drop a blank CD-R disc into the burner and click Record or Write. Your computer will read, or rip, songs from the existing CD and then write, or burn, them onto the the disc. When it's done, the reverse side of the new disc will be darkened‹a technological sunburn. (You can pick up CD-R discs for less than $1 a pop; the more expensive rewriteable CD-RW discs and recorders are mainly for data backup and won't play on traditional stereos.)

If you haven't already forked over $15 for the Tokens' CD, it might be easier to nab the song for free on a music "sharing" site like Napster — if your conscience doesn't bother you. Or download MP3s from the fully legal sites described in "Where to Find Legal Music." Just create a directory on your hard drive (call it, say, My Music) and direct your burning software to look there. Follow the prompts, and soon the songs will be burned on to your disc. Typically, the programs convert your MP3s into a much larger type of file (called a .wav) that can be read by any CD player. Though many more MP3s could fit on a disc, CDs with MP3s can be read only by PCs and some new players (see sidebar).

If you remember where you stored your old vinyl LPs, you can freshen up their sound and turn them into CDs. Lug your stereo over to your computer, connect them — amplifier to sound card — and convert the songs into digital files. Then you can polish them with software like Adaptec's Easy CD Creator. While this won't create true CD-quality music, it can erase the timeworn snap, crackle and pop of an LP or 45.

Once you've made a customized CD, you can create your own CD labels. Some burning software has this capability built in, or you can buy it separately. Soon your CD rack will be bristling with homegrown CDs.

Is all this legal? The rule of thumb is that you can make copies of your music for yourself, but you can't distribute them. Some would argue that it's illegal to give a copy to a friend. And one other warning: the frequent burning of custom-tailored CDs that you will actually listen to and never fast-forward is highly addictive and may cause unbridled glee. Proceed at your own risk.