Music on Memory Sticks

[Stemar]

Boat and car have radios with a USB port and play music from memory sticks quite happily, but don't seem to have a way to delve into folders. I put a bunch of classical pieces on a stick, in order - This Piece 1st Movement 1, Movement 2, etc, That Piece Movement 1, Movement 2, etc, but when the radios play them, they come out in a more or less random order, which is fine as background music, but not if I actually want to listen to a symphony.

Is there a way short of editing the files - some wav, some mp3 - into one per piece to ensure they play in order?

 

[KevinV]

Two questions
- are the files named 01,02,03, etc?
-is the player not on shuffle?

 

[NickRobinson]

My camper radio can change folders (long press) but still plays out of order often as KevinV mentions and also has a RDM button.
My car uses a BT hands free dongle that only plays the c. 800 tracks sequentially.....

 

[harvey38]

What car, what make music system?

I can easily access directory>artist>track on my 2014 plate Modeo using the steering wheel buttons so if a Ford can do it, I would have thought pretty much any other car could do it.

 

[Stemar]

Not on shuffle - I did check that, but quite a lot of them are Track 01, Track 02, etc. I think I can see some editing of file names coming up!

The car is a Hyundai IX35 of 2015 vintage. It's possible I could get into folders with that one, but the one on the boat is a cheapy China Inc job.

 

[MoodySabre]

I use memory sticks to record tracks for a Talking Newspaper for people who are visually impaired.
Name the tracks in the order you wish them to play e.g. Track A, Track B etc (if using numbers then 01,02 etc). Then when you have loaded them up run the Stick through a FAT sorter (we use a freebee) and it will ensure that they play in that order.

 

[dunedin]

Old programming tip, if want to force the order of files by numbering, always number T0010, T0020, T0030 etc, or similar.

Numbering 1,2,3 goes very wrong when reach 11 - as computer sees as 1, 11 then 2.

And 001, 002, 003 is a real pain if later realise want to insert something mid sequence, whilst it is easy to add 0025 between 0020 and 0030

Or USB sticks are so cheap, for a boat just keep dedicated sticks for specific playlists

 

[Stemar]

Old programming tip, if want to force the order of files by numbering, always number T0010, T0020, T0030 etc, or similar.

Numbering 1,2,3 goes very wrong when reach 11 - as computer sees as 1, 11 then 2.

And 001, 002, 003 is a real pain if later realise want to insert something mid sequence, whilst it is easy to add 0025 between 0020 and 0030

That brings back memories - learning BASIC programming on a Sinclair!

10: x = "Hallo world"
20: Print x

You're right about memory sticks - so cheap now I chucked one out recently because it was only 250MB I got in trouble at work because I needed it to install a set of spreadsheets and my zip drive had died, so I spent £50 on it to get the job done. Fortunately my boss was sensible and insisted I got reimbursed.

 

[Gsailor]

The numbering should work but to answer your question about merging tracks into one then I think the software called Audacity would do it. It used to be free software, but I have not looked.

 

[kwb78]

Is there a way short of editing the files - some wav, some mp3 - into one per piece to ensure they play in order?

You shouldn’t need to edit them into one track to get them to play in order. mp3 files contain metadata which includes things like track number, so if those are inaccurate or missing, the player may not be ordering them correctly. You can rectify this using tagging software like Musicbrainz Picard, which will compare the tracks with an online database and re-label them accordingly. It’s free and open source. It’s a fairly automatic process, but sometimes you have to tell it which album is correct as there are often multiple releases of the same one.

 

[dunedin]

That brings back memories - learning BASIC programming on a Sinclair!

10: x = "Hallo world"
20: Print x

You're right about memory sticks - so cheap now I chucked one out recently because it was only 250MB I got in trouble at work because I needed it to install a set of spreadsheets and my zip drive had died, so I spent £50 on it to get the job done. Fortunately my boss was sensible and insisted I got reimbursed.

BASIC ! Modern fangled stuff. Was FORTRAN on a card punch :-;

 

[Minerva]

Can you not just play the music on your phone via bluetooth to your stereo. Phone will likely have a far better user interface than whatever is used on your inbuilt stereo.

 

[Stemar]

Can you not just play the music on your phone via bluetooth to your stereo. Phone will likely have a far better user interface than whatever is used on your inbuilt stereo.

Yes, I'll give that a go too, but I'll try some of the other tips first

 

[lustyd]

It's quite likely they support m3u playlists. These allow you to make up playlists and albums from files on disk and don't rely on folder structures.

M3U - Wikipedia

Also worth understanding what filesystem you have on the sticks. Microsoft prevented use of some FAT32 stuff due to patents so a lot of Linux and open source based stuff (your radios, for instance) require FAT or EXFAT. This can sometimes lead to weird behaviour rather than outright failure.

 

[MoodySabre]

It's quite likely they support m3u playlists. These allow you to make up playlists and albums from files on disk and don't rely on folder structures.

M3U - Wikipedia

Also worth understanding what filesystem you have on the sticks. Microsoft prevented use of some FAT32 stuff due to patents so a lot of Linux and open source based stuff (your radios, for instance) require FAT or EXFAT. This can sometimes lead to weird behaviour rather than outright failure.

I frequently use a FAT sorter on Windows 10.

 

[ProDave]

If the radio is Blue Tooth, forget playing it directly from a memory stick, play it from your phone using your choice of music player that allows you to choose playlists.

 

[mikefleetwood]

The numbering should work but to answer your question about merging tracks into one then I think the software called Audacity would do it. It used to be free software, but I have not looked.

First, I think Audacity is still free (but maybe some limitations).
Second, it's not always a good idea to merge all your audio into one file. Some MP3 players need to read the entire file into memory for playback - I have a (getting a bit old now) pro music player that I use for DJ and background, it supports multiple playlists and various searches. Some music album downloads, in addition to the normal tracks, include compilation mix tracks - which cause the player to crash as there's not enough memory to hold them!

 

[Refueler]

The suggestion to use a 'longer' number sequence works for me.

As said if just using 1 .. 2 ... and so on ... 11 will play before 2 etc.

Also - if you leave any part of the real title in the file name after the number - that will be sequenced based on alphabet after the number.