Best way to load music onto USB stick to play in car?

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by T'mershi Duween, Dec 20, 2014.

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  1. T'mershi Duween

    T'mershi Duween Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Y'allywood
    I could use a little help here. I want to give someone a Christmas gift of a USB stick loaded with music files to play in their Nissan Leaf. From what I gather, the Leaf will only play mp3 or WMA files (that really sucks!). I was hoping that it would play .flac or at least .wav. Oh wells. I've also read that the Leaf has trouble reading files created on a Mac. I mostly use Mac but I have a Windoze machine w/Foobar 2000 installed as well. I figure I can use this to convert music files to 256kb mp3 and to organize, etc.

    What is the best way to format, organize and put together a USB stick (8 or 16 gig) full of music to be played in a car? Anything I need to know?

    Basically, is there any tips to help with the process?

    Thanks! :)
     
  2. head_unit

    head_unit Senior Member

    Location:
    Los Angeles CA USA
    I spent many years doing OEM radio development, and the best I can tell you is that to be SURE the things works…you MUST be able to test it. Sorry, but all the advice on Earth is not a guarantee it will be seamless, nor all play in the correct order.

    You might have more luck on a Leaf forum-Google "nissan leaf USB playback" and there are a number of matches including a mynissanleaf forum (where at least one thread is complaining about tracks not playing back in order).

    Another variable to consider is that big memory sizes are sometimes not supported.

    This thread
    http://www.leaftalk.co.uk/archive/index.php/t-15114.html
    says among other things
    "Memory stick is limited to .mp3 and .wma. Probably because the operating system is Windows based and they didn't want to implement an .mp4 player." and "It's made much worse via the fact it does not like USB sticks which have been set up on a mac and will freeze up when encountering the mac ._info files."
    Then other comments in this and other threads run on about how awful the playback implementation is and full of bugs.

    Frankly, you should give up this idea. I highly doubt you can implement it to be a nice, smooth running, trouble-free gift. If you feel brave, you probably need to re-rip inside of Windows Media Player so all the metadata is where the Windows-based Leaf expects it to be…but again based on the comments I doubt it will work flawlessly :shake:
     
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  3. T'mershi Duween

    T'mershi Duween Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Y'allywood
    Thanks head_unit! I figured it was as clunky and non-intuitive a venture as I've read. I think I might just fill up the USB stick with files and let the giftee sort it out. :)

    I just wished it would play .flac. So many formats, so many tech hurdles in today's world.
     
  4. patient_ot

    patient_ot Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    My car does the same thing, but will play mp3 or Wav. Possibly WMA, but since I don't use that format, I'm not sure. I usually just load up a stick with songs, pop it in, then hit the random button. The CD player will also play DATA CDrs, which is nice. I can put several albums by one artist in MP3 on one CDr, then play them in the car. I don't think I've ever had any issues with VBR mp3s either. I do wish it played FLAC and OGG files, but can't have everything I guess...
     
    T'mershi Duween likes this.
  5. erniebert

    erniebert Shoe-string audiophile

    Location:
    Toronto area
    At 256 kpbs, in a car, an mp3 probably won't sound much different than a flac.

    You can fit a LOT more songs on the stick that way, too.
     
    Rick58, c-eling and SamS like this.
  6. Mike-48

    Mike-48 A shadow of my former self

    Location:
    Portland, Oregon
    I second what head_unit says. Car players have their own quirks. The one in my car, e.g., stops reading after 2500 directory entries (files or directory names). It has a 64 Gb limit, but the 64 Gb stick I got, it wouldn't read at all. It did read a 32 Gb stick, but was limited by the number of files it would accept. Also, it does not read flac or mp4. This is just an example, but I think it's not unusual.

    I agree with erniebert that what you'll hear in an average car is limited by road and engine noise. I use 320 kbps mp3 files, which are probably overkill, and they sound fine. At home, I can tell the difference between those and flac immediately.

    No point doing it unless you are willing to go back and forth to see what works.
     
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  7. formu_la

    formu_la I'm not a robot

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    32 gb will hold a LOT of 320/ mp3 albums. I just copy files to the stick from a hard drive (together with the artist and albums folders) . All my cars present and past had no problem to handle it.
     
  8. GreenDrazi

    GreenDrazi Truth is beauty

    Location:
    Atlanta, GA
    So you think that it’s a Christmas gift to give away 8-16Gigs of music without compensating the artists?

    And that it’s perfectly OK to ask how to do so on this public forum supported by a someone in the industry?
     
    jkauff likes this.
  9. Gaslight

    Gaslight ⎧⚍⎫⚑

    Location:
    Northeast USA
    I don't have the same car, but did some of my own testing as far as the best compatibility with a USB flash drive. Some suggestions, with that in mind:

    - Format the USB drive as FAT32, most likely that will be supported in the car. Don't use HPFS+, NTFS or even exFAT yet. Perhaps format it on the Windows machine first, as that might help matters.
    - Use MP3, as you've already figured out. Probably easier for you just because of of Mac support. But also in case the giftee wants to move the files off to an iPod or some other device later.

    (I tested FLAC and Vorbis in my car btw - neither worked. I think WAV may have worked, but given the file sizes it really wasn't a feasible solution for me so I went with MP3).
     
    Last edited: Dec 20, 2014
  10. Gaslight

    Gaslight ⎧⚍⎫⚑

    Location:
    Northeast USA
    Given the OP's posts, that I've seen recently anyway, about artist compensation, I'd like to think he's transferring ownership of those files to the giftee and destroying any original copies he has.
     
  11. T'mershi Duween

    T'mershi Duween Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Y'allywood
    I guess I should have stated that these music files are all original? The music in question is mine and is for a family member who has been bugging me to do this for a while. Since they are young and don't use cds, I was trying to deliver said music in a "file container" that they can play in their car or on their phone.

    I have about 30 gigs of uncompressed original music that they want.



     
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  12. Gaslight

    Gaslight ⎧⚍⎫⚑

    Location:
    Northeast USA
    Makes sense! :) Also keep in mind that your giftee might just transfer the files to their phone, or a music locker of some sort, and then play them in the car via the aux in or via Bluetooth. MP3 is probably still the best bet imo for compatibility reasons.
     
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  13. T'mershi Duween

    T'mershi Duween Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Y'allywood
    That's what I'm thinking. Most young people do everything from their phone now.

    I just hate taking all my archival original music (in .aiff format) and converting it to lowly mp3s! I'm thinking about doing .flac since the "giftee" has a Samsung s4 and it's supposed to play .flac files so... Here's hoping that this "present" doesn't end up being a chore!

    A lot of my music is already on plenty of bit torrent sites. I didn't put it there either!

    Such is the life of a struggling artist in the 21st century... :sigh:
     
    Gaslight likes this.
  14. Brother_Rael

    Brother_Rael Senior Member

    No big deal - put them at least in album order, go for at least 192kbps and use great recordings. If you go for a 32Gb stick then you can go 320kbps and then they'll never tell the difference like the vast majority of people. The car should at least be able to read each album file and display that to the driver.

    I'm no fan of WMA, probably through unfamiliarity, but mp3 should be fine. Can be used on the stick, smartphone, etc, etc...
     
    T'mershi Duween likes this.
  15. jkauff

    jkauff Senior Member

    Location:
    Akron, OH
    If you want the tracks to play in a particular order, put the track number (with a leading zero) at the beginning of the file name, and put a leading zero in the numbers in the Track tag. Car players are notoriously dumb when it comes to playback order.
     
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  16. gloomrider

    gloomrider Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Hollywood, CA, USA
    For those of you wanting to delete the so-called "Apple double" files when copying from a Mac to a USB stick formatted FAT32 or NTFS:

    • Simply launch the Terminal application.
    • (assuming the label of the USB stick is "NO NAME")
    Code:
    cd /Volumes/NO\ NAME
    find . -name ._\* -exec /bin/rm  {} \;
    cd
    
    Then eject the stick and presto! All the "._" files are gone!

    I do this every time I sync files to a Fiio X5 from a Mac.
     
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