How to Download Music to Xbox 360

The Xbox 360 features the ability to not only rip music straight off your CDs and onto the hard drive, but to also download music or stream it using the Xbox Music service. With these tools, you can easily create your own custom soundtracks for your favorite games and personalize your gaming sessions. Depending on the game, playing a custom soundtrack may require the extra step of disabling in-game music.

Ripping a CD

Ripping a CD to your Xbox 360 is as simple as it gets. Just load the CD into the 360's disc tray and wait a moment or two for the music player to start. Once it does, select the "Rip CD" option and choose what tracks you want to rip to your Xbox's hard drive. Clicking "Rip CD" once more will begin copying the tracks to your hard drive. In most cases, you'll have to label the tracks yourself once they've copied, adding the artist name, title and album information as necessary so you don't have a drive full unnamed tracks.

XBox Music

You can also download music to your Xbox 360 through the Xbox Music service. Xbox Music can be used in a few different ways, with the ability to stream music titles as one of the easier methods. However, if you want music available even while playing offline, you can purchase and download music and save it to your Xbox's hard drive, as well as other Windows devices. Xbox Music requires an Xbox Live Gold membership, which may be a deterrent if you otherwise don't use the Gold features.