Recording music to USB

[LandyAndy]

Hi
I will be recording my music onto a 16GB flash drive to play in my D4.I have several already in use however Ive had mixed results with some albums not being visible to the player.The same flash drive works on other players like in my boat(Jensen unit),but not in my grader(Alpine unit).
Is there a correct way of formatting the USB drive????
Can I record a CD direct to the USB without first copying it to my laptop.
ROUGHLY,how many CDs will fill 16GB as I will copy the more favorite ones first.
Thanks
Andrew

[sheerluck]

Normal rule of thumb is that at reasonable quality levels, 1mb = 1 minute of music. So a 16gb flash drive should get you ~260 hours of music. Increasing the quality will increase the space required.

[LandyAndy]

Quality is paramount Dave with a nice juke box,any idea how to include the space when recording,Im a nuffie in these areas;);););)
Andrew

[sheerluck]

It depends on what software you are using to rip a CD to MP3 (or other sound format of choice). It should give you a choice of recording levels.

That may sound a bit vague, but there are several audio formats, and countless CD ripping apps out there.

If you can say which one you use, I can make it a bit more direct.

[Ferret]

I have several already in use however Ive had mixed results with some albums not being visible to the player.The same flash drive works on other players like in my boat(Jensen unit),but not in my grader(Alpine unit).
Is there a correct way of formatting the USB drive????
Can I record a CD direct to the USB without first copying it to my laptop.

I think you might have to format the USB to FAT32. But if some album names appear and others don't on the same USB drive then the problem is not the USB format. And yes you can record directly to a USB drive.

Mp3 music files contain 'metadata' (sometimes called 'tags') as well as the music data itself. Among the metadata is the album name, the track name, the artist name, album cover art etc. If this meta data is missing it will not display the album name etc on your music player.

Whether any metadata is present within the mp3 file will depend on how it was created. If you have created the mp3 file by ripping from your own CDs then chances are the metadata is not present unless the ripping software is smart enough (and you set it up correctly) to go to the internet to find the metadata from various databases out there that exist for this purpose.

For any mp3 track you can see the metadata and edit it yourself with certain software. Mp3Tag (http://www.mp3tag.de/en/) is a decent bit of gear for this purpose but there are others around too. With Mp3Tag you can view and edit your metadata and if you find it missing you can use MP3Tag to go to a number of online databases and retrieve the metadata for you provided you can identify the album the track originally came from.

[AndyG]

I put all the music on iTunes, create a play list , copy & paste. All sweet

[LandyAndy]

I think you might have to format the USB to FAT32. But if some album names appear and others don't on the same USB drive then the problem is not the USB format. And yes you can record directly to a USB drive.

Mp3 music files contain 'metadata' (sometimes called 'tags') as well as the music data itself. Among the metadata is the album name, the track name, the artist name, album cover art etc. If this meta data is missing it will not display the album name etc on your music player.

Whether any metadata is present within the mp3 file will depend on how it was created. If you have created the mp3 file by ripping from your own CDs then chances are the metadata is not present unless the ripping software is smart enough (and you set it up correctly) to go to the internet to find the metadata from various databases out there that exist for this purpose.

For any mp3 track you can see the metadata and edit it yourself with certain software. Mp3Tag (http://www.mp3tag.de/en/) is a decent bit of gear for this purpose but there are others around too. With Mp3Tag you can view and edit your metadata and if you find it missing you can use MP3Tag to go to a number of online databases and retrieve the metadata for you provided you can identify the album the track originally came from.

So,is it possible that if this metadata is missing,because the music has come from a CD that the player cant read whats on the USB????
Andrew

[Mick_Marsh]

When ripping a CD, the metadata is not contained on the CD so it is not copied across

unless

if you use ripping software that goes out on the web to look for that metadata.

[Ferret]

So,is it possible that if this metadata is missing,because the music has come from a CD that the player cant read whats on the USB????
Andrew

If the metadata is missing your music player should still play the music if the player (or you) can find the track. The track names (or album names) just won't be displayed on the list of albums or tracks that is on the usb drive so you think they are not there. Or, they might be displayed as 'unknown album' or 'unknown track' - something like that.

Like I said, if the USB drive shows all tracks on one player but shows no tracks on another player then most likely the USB drive is formated in a format not supported by that player. Most (maybe all) players support FAT32 file format. Some players may not support NTFS format.

If the USB drive shows all tracks on one player but only some tracks on another player then it is probably not the file format of the USB drive that is the problem. In this case, more likely to be something associated with the track tags (track metadata) preventing them from being displayed and so you think they are not there.

If you have created the mp3 tracks yourself from your own CD's and these CD's are fairly old then it is likely your mp3 files contain no metadata because old CD's contained no information to describe the contents of the CD tracks (or the album itself). The only way to get that metadata in this case is to add it manually by typing it in using a mp3 'Tag' editor or the ripping software gets it from an online database. Newer CD's may have information about each track (so called 'CD-Text') which can be included in the mp3 tags when the track is ripped to mp3 but the use of CD-Text is not universal and certainly was not available on older CDs.

[AndyG]

On my 8gb USB, 893 songs,
7.43 gb space, 3.88 free, so 4mb per song
So you should get. 4000 songs

[LandyAndy]

I think Im getting my head around this.
Ive got the 14 albums off my computer that were purchased online onto my thumbdrive.
Now ripping my first CD to the computer,its a tad slow.Did alter a few of the ripping options,ie auto rip,MP3 format,best quality recording.
See how this goes.
Thanks for the help.
Andrew

[AndyG]

Hi
I will be recording my music onto a 16GB flash drive to play in my D4.I have several already in use however Ive had mixed results with some albums not being visible to the player.The same flash drive works on other players like in my boat(Jensen unit),but not in my grader(Alpine unit).
Is there a correct way of formatting the USB drive????
Can I record a CD direct to the USB without first copying it to my laptop.
ROUGHLY,how many CDs will fill 16GB as I will copy the more favorite ones first.
Thanks
Andrew

I wonder if your Grader Alpine can read MP 3 and not MP4 or a similar mismatch.

[LandyAndy]

I wonder if your Grader Alpine can read MP 3 and not MP4 or a similar mismatch.
Unsure,it never came with a book of words for the duke box.
Will make sure the new grader comes with one;););););)
Andrew

[PhilipA]

I had a problem when I burned a DVD of Les Mis onto a USB.
It came in M4a which I changed to MP3 by using "Free M4a converter to MP3"
I then saved the new files in correct order by renaming 1,2 etc.
Then saved them into Itunes.

Then burned to USB.
BUT the damn things changed order and I couldn't fix it. I ended up reloading into Itunes and saving onto a ipod, and then it worked.
The net says the tracks should play in order downloaded onto the USB, but for me they didn't.
Personally I think using an Ipod is far superior if you have a USB connector on the stereo.
Regards Philip A

[loanrangie]

Rip to lossless for near perfect reproduction, uses lots of space though.

[LandyAndy]

I wonder if your Grader Alpine can read MP 3 and not MP4 or a similar mismatch.

Played the USB in the grader today,all the new CD copies work,the albums that have been "invisable" to the Alpine unit in the past still are,its obviously the format isnt recoknised by the alpine unit.
At least all the albums are reckongnised by the D4 player:cool::cool::cool::cool::cool: 8gb recorded,need to go thru the rest of my CDs now to fill it up.Windows media finds the latest metadata and records it whilst riping the CDs,impressed with that as I copied some olde favorite CDs and they have all the data on screen:cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool:
Once again,thanks for the help from a computer trodgolite;););););)
Andrew

[Basil135]

Andy,

Did you know, you can copy a CD onto the hard drive in the car?

So, if you do happen to fill your USB, you can still fit another 8 - 10 CD's onto the drive... ;)

[LandyAndy]

Andy,

Did you know, you can copy a CD onto the hard drive in the car?

So, if you do happen to fill your USB, you can still fit another 8 - 10 CD's onto the drive... ;)

Really??? Wasnt aware of that.
Must re-read the book of words.Explains why they only give you a single CD despite it being the upgraded Meridian HiFi.
Andrew