How Do You Guys Organize Your USB Tunes?

[wxman]

It seems the USB orders MP3s in the order they are added to the USB drive. Album order is not respected by the EX35. I have a few tricks to deal with this, but wondering what others do.

[zarar]

I just right click on my computer and go to Sort By>Name. The way its organized on my computer, I get it organized on my flash driver alphabetically (or numerically if you put a # before the track name). To organize it even further I just put them all into separate folders and if I don't like it alphabetically I just put "1. Rock Music" "2. R&B" and on like that, usually does the trick for me.

EDIT: Have you tried uploading videos on your USB to see if it will work, always wondered if it'd work and what file formats are supported.
Modified by zarar at 12:14 PM 3/11/2010

[wxman]

I just right click on my computer and go to Sort By>Name. The way its organized on my computer, I get it organized on my flash driver alphabetically (or numerically if you put a # before the track name). To organize it even further I just put them all into separate folders and if I don't like it alphabetically I just put "1. Rock Music" "2. R&B" and on like that, usually does the trick for me.

EDIT: Have you tried uploading videos on your USB to see if it will work, always wondered if it'd work and what file formats are supported.

Modified by zarar at 12:14 PM 3/11/2010

I still think that the USB is organizing according to how each file is written to the flash...it's easy to control if you just copy an album or two...it will usually copy in the order it appears on the PC, but not always, and DEFINITELY not if you send a batch of albums at once...like 20 albums to a 16gb USB drive. In that event each album will appear as a folder, but the tracks within folders are generally copied in alpha order, not track order (though track order sometimes happens if the very first item is a track #, and most MP3s are not that way). Obviously once the stuff is on the USB you cannot reorder. I'm surprised there is no utility to deal with getting stuff on a USB in the order you want without to much tinkering.

[flashzoom]

ok...I have all my MP3s in iTune.when I transport to the USB drive for the EX to play.this is what I do.

I create folders on the USB drive.each folder then will store each album.let's say if there is a Album called "love songs 01" contain 12 MP3 song files. I just create a folder on the USB drive, that stores only those 12 files.that will help to sepreate each Albums, and if u want to keep the albums in certain orders, u can just put "01", "02" in front of the of Album name.for example, "01 Love Songs 01" "02 party musics" and etc.that way the albums will be in the orders that you wanted.

as for the Videos, yes, the video play back on the USB drive will work.I use winX video converter to do all the conversions.here are the requirements.

file ext: .avicodec: DivX3, 4, 5, 6Audio: mp3

bit rate: 8mbps (max)

resolution: 32x32 to 720x480

try it, and let me know if you have any questions.

[wxman]

ok...I have all my MP3s in iTune.when I transport to the USB drive for the EX to play.this is what I do.

I create folders on the USB drive.each folder then will store each album.let's say if there is a Album called "love songs 01" contain 12 MP3 song files. I just create a folder on the USB drive, that stores only those 12 files.that will help to sepreate each Albums, and if u want to keep the albums in certain orders, u can just put "01", "02" in front of the of Album name.for example, "01 Love Songs 01" "02 party musics" and etc.that way the albums will be in the orders that you wanted.

as for the Videos, yes, the video play back on the USB drive will work.I use winX video converter to do all the conversions.here are the requirements.

file ext: .avicodec: DivX3, 4, 5, 6Audio: mp3

bit rate: 8mbps (max)

resolution: 32x32 to 720x480

try it, and let me know if you have any questions.

ok...I have all my MP3s in iTune.when I transport to the USB drive for the EX to play.this is what I do.

I create folders on the USB drive.each folder then will store each album.let's say if there is a Album called "love songs 01" contain 12 MP3 song files. I just create a folder on the USB drive, that stores only those 12 files.that will help to sepreate each Albums, and if u want to keep the albums in certain orders, u can just put "01", "02" in front of the of Album name.for example, "01 Love Songs 01" "02 party musics" and etc.that way the albums will be in the orders that you wanted.

as for the Videos, yes, the video play back on the USB drive will work.I use winX video converter to do all the conversions.here are the requirements.

file ext: .avicodec: DivX3, 4, 5, 6Audio: mp3

bit rate: 8mbps (max)

resolution: 32x32 to 720x480

try it, and let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks, but I'm reasonably certain that the order is being maintained on your USB because of the order in which you are saving the files to the flash drive, e.g. you save 01 before 02...that's how all usb's work. I don't think the EX is applying any intelligence to the process, but I'm not sure. An interesting test would be to save file name 02 before saving 01 and see if the EX displays the tracks in chron order. As I mentioned earlier, the real problem is in saving bulk music, where you don't want to manually create folders...I have north of 100GB of music! When you do a bulk transfer, the transfer process tends to move things from PC to the flash in alpha order, not track order. I also think that the transfers WILL go in track order only IF the file name starts with the track #, but my PC collection only has few files like that (only when the music was ripped from a CD, which I haven't done in a long time).

[flashzoom]

Thanks, but I'm reasonably certain that the order is being maintained on your USB because of the order in which you are saving the files to the flash drive, e.g. you save 01 before 02...that's how all usb's work. I don't think the EX is applying any intelligence to the process, but I'm not sure. An interesting test would be to save file name 02 before saving 01 and see if the EX displays the tracks in chron order. As I mentioned earlier, the real problem is in saving bulk music, where you don't want to manually create folders...I have north of 100GB of music! When you do a bulk transfer, the transfer process tends to move things from PC to the flash in alpha order, not track order. I also think that the transfers WILL go in track order only IF the file name starts with the track #, but my PC collection only has few files like that (only when the music was ripped from a CD, which I haven't done in a long time).

interesting.I am almost 100% positive that the EX will play the songs based on the file name from A...Zunless you define other wise.

[wxman]

interesting.I am almost 100% positive that the EX will play the songs based on the file name from A...Zunless you define other wise.

Nope, I wasted an hour testing this last night. The EX simply reads the USB by folder and track. The order at least for tracks (what I tested in detail) is by when the tracks were added to the USB. Adding numbers to the file name, eg 01-Boston-More than a feeling, forces the order in which the PC writes to to the USB. But, if you take those same tracks and add them to the USB one by one, when you open the folder on the EX, track 1 is the first track you added to the USB regardless of number or alpha. By default most PC's will transfer to USB by Alpha. HINT If you guys use media monkey, open the album in MM, order them by track#, then Select ALL, Copy and paste into a folder on the USB, the order will be as seen on MM. That trick works for any order. So, I have a 300 song place list that I want organized by track title...I order the tunes that way on MM and then copy/paste them into a folder on my USB like EX35 Playlist, and now I can search by track title on the EX.