cd to digital in Mac air

QuickTime Player isn’t used for this.

To create (“burn”) a standard music CD, you will obviously need to connect an external CD-writer (or DVD writer, BD writer) to your MacBook Air. The Appel Music app can then help you create the correct format music CD, from a selected playlist. A large set of supported formats (AAC, MP3, AIFF, ALAC, etc.) will be converted to what the CD format needs to be.

The reverse, to extract (“rip”) music from a standard music CD to digital music files on your Mac, you can also use the Apple Music app and an external optical drive. This step can convert to any supported preferred format (AAC, MP3, AIFF, ALAC, etc.), configurable as app setting.

Third party apps may also offer similar functionality, obviously doing things a bit different in a way that their creators see as better or less cluttered. But as the Apple Music app comes bundled with macOS, I will focus on that.

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Burn to a disc (file to disc):

Intro to burning CDs and DVDs in Music on Mac - Apple Support

Create CDs and DVDs in Music on Mac - Apple Support

If you have problems burning a disc in Music on Mac - Apple Support

Import from CDs (disc to file):

Import songs from CDs into Music on Mac - Apple Support

Choose import settings in Music on Mac - Apple Support

If song information doesn’t appear in Music on Mac - Apple Support

Music from the Apple Music subscription service cannot be burned to CD, as it has copy-protection to prohibit that.

The reverse is supported, though: if you have DRM-free music files, that have no match in the Apple Music subscription catalog, then you can upload those tracks to your personal iCloud Music library, for use as-if it was on Apple Music subscription service.