dave_bought_another_black_stang

They really need to come out with a manual for this radio other than what is in the users manual. Especially on how to work with mp3 files to make them compatible. they need to list all the details like how to burn in WMP, musicmatch, whether itunes is compatible or not. I have bought musicmatch premium, and now my software fights over the music, making it difficult to manage. I have over 6000 songs so it is a pain. I think they also should have made this thing to accept Gracenote CDDB tags that some of the software uses. One last thing is that the folder buttons should allow you to shift from folder to folder not just the tracks within that folder. The way it is now you have to seek through all songs in a folder to advance to the next folder
sorry about the random thoughts, just getting frustrated!!!!!
Dave

S197 GT

Here's what I do....

I have Windows Media Player. I chose the mp3 burning format. Or I should say ripping. I also have MusicMatch Jukebox. I go to (File) then to (Add New Tracks to Music Library). I selct (My Documents) and then (My Music). This is where I keep all of my files from Windows Media Player. I select which tracks to "add to the music libarary", in my case the entire colection. And click (Add). You now have all of your mp3 files from Windows Media Player in MusicMatch Jukebox.

Now to burn the mp3...You go to MusicMatch Jukebox and click (Burn to CD) In my case I have MusicMatch BurnerPlus. Which I figure you also have. Now you just click on the mp3 disk icon and your ready to burn. Click the (Add) icon and pick which songs you want. On a 700 mb cd I usually get from 10 to 12 full length cds on 1 disk.

To organize in folders...go to your options in MusicMatch BurnerPlus and go to the settings. From here go to your mp3 tab. Make sure to have the (Arrange files numerically then alphatbetically) box UNCHECKED. (Modify) your "Automatic Folder Creation" to Either your Album Name, Artist Name, Track Name, Gene, Mood, or Release Year. I set it to Album Name. Click (OK) and then (Apply) your ready to burn your mp3's in folders.

Sorry for the long post, but I tried to figure this out for a long time. So I hope it makes sense.

os121

Dave, I agree with you, the manual is lacking. It took me a long while before I finally figured out how to handle MP3's in the Shaker. Are your songs organized in folders only one level deep ? Also, is your radio set to 'Folder' mode, and is Shuffle mode off ?

dekujala

I rip all my CD's with Musicmatch 7.2 with a MP3 bitrate of 192.
Burn them on a CD with only 1 folder level (so just album title for the folder names) using Nero 6, and so far has been working like a champ for me.

I thought I was having problems with my volume levels on the discs, but read the manual and found out thats what the stupid speed control option does, so I disabled it. I originally enabled it thinking it was how fast the volume **** increased the volume, guess I should have read the manual first

dave_bought_another_black_stang

You guys are GREAT!!!! I appreciate all of the great feedback. So I suppose now my only problem is doubling the size of my library by 'converting' all of my 6000+ songs in itunes into mp3 format. It actually reproduces a new file for each song not an actual conversion.

One other problem. When a song is playing in the shaker, it displays the song title with a 00x then the song title, you hit the text button, and it says title again, and once again to get artist, album. Is there a way to get rid of the second level of song name?

Also, it won't burn the playlist in the order i choose the songs even with the folder root selected...any ideas here?

Thanks again!
Dave

os121

Dave, I trust things are going better I know exactly what you are going through with iTunes, because I have the same issues .. now I rip songs from my albums solely in Mp3 format. I can try and explain how the Shaker is working, then you can adjust to meet your needs. The text in the display defaults to the file name of the track you are playing. As you have found, using the text button will also display the Song, Artist and Album names (I am going on memory here, so bear with me). Depending on the file/track encoding you may or may not see the Song, Artist and Album names - I am kind of guessing that you do, since you mentioned it. I suspect that the 00x that you see is actually the file name, so if you want this not to display, try configuring your Shaker to display the actual Song name by default. To do this, I think you toggle the Text button until you see the acroynm 'So', and then keep holding the text button down until it remembers the new display mode.

Regarding your playlist ... the Shaker really does not play from a playlist, it reads the files from within each folder, and orders them according to file name. If you want your songs to play in a particular order, then you will have to make sure that you give them physical file names (in either iTunes or MusicMatch) that will force the order you want. This is easy in MusicMatch since it has a nice built in utility for renaming the physical files. For example, for a given album/folder, the first song would be named: 01_MyFirstSong.mp3, etc. Although harder, you can do the same thing with folder names, to force the Shaker to play albums in a specific order. You would name the first folder: 01_MyFirstAlbum, etc.

Hope this makes sense, and don't feel alone if you find yourself burning lots of MP3 CD's over and over again. I wasted so many trying to get my songs to show text, and play in a certain order. It is alot of work.

dave_bought_another_black_stang

OS, you da man, but can you help me out a little more with this?

"This is easy in MusicMatch since it has a nice built in utility for renaming the physical files. For example, for a given album/folder, the first song would be named: 01_MyFirstSong.mp3, etc."

Is there a setting in musicmatch to have it burn the playlist in the order you ordered the playlist itself naming it that way so it is forced?

Thank you so much for your help. I wish i still had all of my CD's, but I sent them to the troops through the USO and they are in marine hq in baghdad, iraq right now. All 600 of them.

os121

Dave, here is a way in which you can manipulate the burn-order. From the library view, select a bunch of songs, then right click and select 'Edit Track Info'. Click the button, 'Rename Files'. In the dialog box, 'Create Filename From Tags', set it up like the image below. Field 1 should be Track #, and Field 2 should be Track Title. This will title each filename/track with the proper track number. Of course, this assumes that the track# is available for each song, and that it is padded with a zero for those below 10 (i.e. 09, 08, etc.). If this is not the case, then use the Super-Tagging feature to straighten things out (if you need help w/this let me know). When done, click the 'OK' button, and you now have renamed each file in the album. Now, to have MusicMatch burn the tracks in the order you want, drag the files into the 'Burner' window. Then, click the 'Tools' button (far upper right) then click 'Settings', and navigate to the MP3 panel. Make it look like the image below. Click 'Apply' and 'OK' and then you will have adjusted how MusicMatch burns your tracks. I am not 100% positive about this, but I really don't think that the Shaker reads the tracks in the order that they are burned. I think it reads the files folder by folder, and assigns an internal index to each track based on the physical file name. With enough time this could be verified. In any case, I think if you have the files named using the Track number as a prefix, you will solve the problem of songs playing in the order they were meant to be. Let me know how this works out for you.

dave_bought_another_black_stang

Perfect...U DA MAN~~~

The shaker must have some kind of memory too. I went down and loaded my newest attempted burn in slot 1 and the song playing was not the song identified. I think my cd i took out also had 112 songs, so did the one i put in. So, i ejected it, went to slot 2 and it tagged them properly. That was kind of quirky. The way i renumbered them was in the burn window, i just clicked on the file name until i could edit and then renumbered them in the order i had moved them to. Time consuming, but it worked ...I hope your way is easier will try now.
Dave

dsmartin15

Don't know if this has much to do with the thread, but has anyone had a delay when they use the CD player when jumping to the next song? I tried the mp3 player out in a 05 explorer and it jumps right to the next song, no wait. But, when I play the same CD in the shaker 500, it seems like it takes a few seconds and sounds like its doing more than just going to the next song. Is this just the way it is?

Stubbies

Nothing personal, but this subject has seen LOTS of talk, some of it pretty recent too. The shaker does that by default, nothing that I have seen to modify that.

Dusty1

I'm trying to figure out if there is a correlation to the Shaker problems people are having with the databit transfer rate they are using.

I'd like to go with 128kbits, as long as fidelity doesn't suffer terribly. But I won't even waste my time if the Shaker will have serious decode problems with 128 kbits. I started ripping my collection using 192kbits, but it sure would be nice to know if I'm setting myself up for failure and a lot of wasted recoding time before I take delivery....

Stubbies

Nope, you are safe with 192. Matter of fact, 192 is the LOWEST bit rate I will feed through the shaker. You will notice a difference between a 128 and a 192 in the shaker big time. I use 192 all the way up to 320. 256 and 320 preferrably, but I also use variable bitrate recording without problem.

Dusty1

Thanks Chris, I haven't tried 256 or 320 yet, since I was trying to get as many albums on a single CD; but I won't tolerate a significant loss in fidelity to do it.

I sure wish the Shaker 1000 would read DVDs....

Thanks again for your help!

Fellser

I just wanted to say thank you. This has been the most helpful thread I've seen so far.

My car is due in two weeks and all I can do to prepare for it is burn MP3s. I don't even know if they're going to work, so after 7 I stopped doing them.

I've cut and pasted these posts into a Word file so I can go over the notes as I try to improve my burning. I've been getting 10 - 15 CDs on a disc and I would hate to have to forward through them song by song.

Thanks again.

Dusty1

Since burning MP3's is a very time consuming process (at least it is using Windows Media Player!), this thread has the capability to save everyone a lot of time, and a lot of coasters!

I'm only getting about 8 albums on a CD though, using 192 kbit transfer rate on a 700meg CDR. It must be the content: I'm in the process of burning all my Rush and Pink Floyd albums this weekend. I've got close to 400 CDs I'm going to eventually rip, and I'd hate to think I spent all that time using a databit transfer rate that's going to wreak havoc with the Shaker system!

Fellser

I think one of us must be doing something wrong. The records from the 70s are generally shorter than current releases. I was able to burn close to 15 CDs per disc, and that's both older and newer releases.


I don't know anything about tech-no-logical, but I used Sony CD-R Audio 80 minute discs. I used MusicMatch Jukebox, the one that came with my laptop. Wow, I hope I did this right.

Dusty1

Hmmm. Are you using 192kbit data rate too? Windows says an average album takes 86 meg using this data rate, but only 57 meg if I use the lowest data rate of 128 kbits.

So, doing some rough math, at 192 kbits, I'd get less than 9 albums on a 700 meg CDR (data- not using audio CDs, since I'm using my computer).

Fellser

Where would I find that info? I have no idea what I'm doing or using. I just followed the directions on MM jukebox and clicked.

It's me. I'm doing something wrong. I have to do it all over again. I actually deleted about 30 CDs from the library because I didn't want my computer getting bogged down with all that stuff. I gotta do it again.

How do I find out about the bit rate? And since the numbers mean nothing to me, what numbers do I want it to say?

Thanks

Dusty1

I'm afraid I can't help you with MusicMatch software, since I don't have it. However, there has to be someone else reading this thread that can help you set it up.

Sorry to hear about you having to redo 30 albums. Imagine how I'd feel if I had to redo 400!

Earlier in this thread someone mentioned 192kbits as being a good data rate. I've played it back on my home stereo, and it sounds just fine. I'm sure that with all the road noise in the car, it will be just fine too.