for the "wierd little symbols " i can't help you i don't have a CD drive. but i think you shouldn't format a blank CD unless it's a CDRW, is that what you did ? if you formated a blank CD and try to read it again that might be the reason of your "wierd little symbols " anyway you might waste a few CD's before getting the technic and get what you want.
Now you can save every thing from samples (wav files), programs, sequences and multi on CD's or Hard drive it's in the "save mode " chapter of the ref manual starting page 84. you can find that manual here :
http://www.akaipro.com/int/download/om_dload.html
my advice is get a hard drive anyway it's way easier to save what you want on it, and burn backup CD's if you want.
If you have a computer you also can transfer via USB all your stuff from the MPC to the computer and use your compuyer to burn a CD....
If you want to burn an audio CD (that you can play in your cd player) with the tracks you made in the MPC then quest5 already gave you all you need in that thread of yours :
http://www.mpc-forums.com/viewtopic.php?t=26486
dude you've got everything you need now right ? good luck and sorry for the tone of the last topic
