How do you arrange your USB Music

[Nikhil Malhotra]

Friends - whats a good way to organize music files on the USB Drive.
I have folders and mp3 music in the folders

But i find it difficult to jump songs on the car. When i have to jump folders , i have to tap on the Folder in the menu and scroll through several folders.
When a song i playing in a folder , i have to click the LIST option in the screen , then use the dial is move through the list and select another song.

 

[1FstYota]

I have mine organized by year. Basically on Jan 1st of each new year I make a folder called MP3 - 2019 etc.. then dump everything I find this year into that folder.

So I just scroll thru whichever year and then songs.

 

[StarPower]

I have mine sorted in folders by artist, then by album. I usually prefer to listen to an album in its entirety, so this way works best for me. It does take a while to scroll through the list of artists, though.

 

[Mr. Incredible]

three words:

iPhone, ipod, android.


a usb stick is a storage device, period.

any i-device or android while also being a storage device will have database software and algorithms build in to search, sort, list, etc. USB devices can't do this and while the car head unit can to a degree it is very limited because of the 100s of different types of USB devices and the literally unlimited way customers put data on them.

with an i-device or android, you are forced to use their way of sorting so that everything works by their design.

even if you don't want to use a phone, you can get many used or remanufactured i-devices for the cost of a usb drive on ebay and then problem solved.

 

[Mcc]

a usb stick is a storage device, period.

Not sure I fully understand. Are you saying that a stick with songs organized in albums can’t play one song after another in an album in the first digit order they are stored on the stick.

 

[Mr. Incredible]

Not sure I fully understand. Are you saying that a stick with songs organized in albums can’t play one song after another in an album in the first digit order they are stored on the stick.

The usb stick can’t no. This would be a function of the head unit. A usb stick is a storage device it has no software logic for sorting or playback.

The head unit is the device that has this functionality and depending on the logic it may be trying to play in alpha or numerical order. It may not see the folder relation and that they hold different albums. Etc.

I don’t really know I’ve never used a usb stick on this or any car. So I don’t know what the logic to the head units playback ability is.


But a usb stick is nothing more than a storage device.


But if you want the ability to search, sort, shuffle, etc then a device dedicated to those functions is what you want.

I-devices have very good database programming. Androids do as well but imo not nearly as clean or organized as iOS.

 

[Mcc]

The head unit is the device that has this functionality and depending on the logic it may be trying to play in alpha or numerical order. It may not see the folder relation and that they hold different albums. Etc.

I don’t really know I’ve never used a usb stick on this or any car. So I don’t know what the logic to the head units playback ability is.


But a usb stick is nothing more than a storage device.

All I am saying is that the stick does not need to be anything more than a storage device in order to get these functionalities of:
Scan
Search (find and play an album, artist, etc)
Play next and previous (in album order)
Shuffle
Repeat

As long as the files are laid down properly on the stick. All this without any additional hardware or wiring or software (except to lay down the files by album and song order). If you simply copy your songs to the stick it’s not going to work as you expect.

 

[Mr. Incredible]

All I am saying is that the stick does not need to be anything more than a storage device in order to get these functionalities of:
Scan
Search (find and play an album, artist, etc)
Play next and previous (in album order)
Shuffle
Repeat

As long as the files are laid down properly on the stick. All this without any additional hardware or wiring or software (except to lay down the files by album and song order). If you simply copy your songs to the stick it’s not going to work as you expect.


View attachment 17963

The key to that is as you said laid down correctly. And as I said there are an unlimited ways people put them on the usb sticks. And there in lies most of the problem. The head unit isn’t programmed to figure out what people do, it needs things a certain way, which is described in the manual for the head unit, but obviously not followed by most, as every car forum i’m on has these threads.

I-devices do all of that for you, doesn’t matter how you arrange them, iTunes maintains the database in the correct form.

 

[Alfer]

Spotify, Pandora, Google Play are now my USB sticks for music. I remember back in the day when I loaded sticks and cd's with all the music I had and it was such a pain.

Now I just ask my car to play a song or album and in seconds I'm jamming to my tunes,

 

[surprisinguy]

I've never really liked iTunes...

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[Mr. Incredible]

I've never really liked iTunes...

unlike Apple where you are locked to itunes, Android has several apps on the play store to do the same thing, pick one you like.

I prefer itunes because it is simple and easy, and I don't have time in my life to fart around with non-sense like loading songs onto a device.

I have a 1 TB drive with over 3000 albums on it, and over 400 digital movies that have been converted from Bluray or DVD, iTunes easily manages all of it and does what I want it to do and allows me to share it with my family and stream it over apple-tv, ipad, iphone, alexa, PC, etc. without having to teach anyone how to do it, just turn on the device and click play.

 

[Mcc]

Spotify, Pandora, Google Play are now my USB sticks for music. I remember back in the day when I loaded sticks and cd's with all the music I had and it was such a pain.

Now I just ask my car to play a song or album and in seconds I'm jamming to my tunes,

Isn’t there a data charge for these services while you’re driving? or do you have these services download their music to your phone ahead of time?

 

[Mr. Incredible]

Isn’t there a data charge for these services while you’re driving? or do you have these services download their music to your phone ahead of time?

they use your cell data plan, pandora will allow you to DL your channels into itunes using a third party app. I did this when I cancelled Pandora last month, my DL was 4,500+ songs, that I had liked or had in my favorite channels lists.

personally I have unlimited data from Verizon so the data "charge" doesn't effect me. But I won't use any products by SiriusXM, and Pandora was recently bought by Sirius, and they changed my $40 a year unlimited plan to $14 a month limited with commercial plan.

 

[idlemind]

I've been wondering if there is a way to create playlists on the USB drive that the HU will read.

 

[Mr. Incredible]

I've been wondering if there is a way to create playlists on the USB drive that the HU will read.

specific songs in a folder with the name of the playlist comes to mind.

 

[Nikhil Malhotra]

I have folders like Rock / Classic / Folk / Country etc ... i can change from one folder to another at the start of journey and then change songs in that folder while driving using the dial .

However if i start driving in a "Classic" mood , and suddenly feel like listening to Rock music , I have to wait for a red light for me to flip the folder . Bit of a pain .

Other option i was thinking on was Rename all files with prefixing ROCK_ or COUNTRY_ etc in front of them , and then have just no folders at all on the drive. That will give me the dial to flip through hundreds of songs , possibly sorted per Genres.

 

[Mr. Incredible]

I have folders like Rock / Classic / Folk / Country etc ... i can change from one folder to another at the start of journey and then change songs in that folder while driving using the dial .

However if i start driving in a "Classic" mood , and suddenly feel like listening to Rock music , I have to wait for a red light for me to flip the folder . Bit of a pain .

Other option i was thinking on was Rename all files with prefixing ROCK_ or COUNTRY_ etc in front of them , and then have just no folders at all on the drive. That will give me the dial to flip through hundreds of songs , possibly sorted per Genres.

I have all my iPhone playlists by Genre when I want to switch from Classical to Rock I press the voice button on the steering wheel and say, play my Rock Playlist. .

never use the jog dial, only the track up/down volume up/down or voice commands on the steering wheel.