I have a new car that has a HDD that plays my MP3s. Problem is that it plays only in alphabtically order.
I've found that it plays in the order of the "title" tag. I'm in the process of changing each title to include the prefix with numbers (01, 02, etc.)
What's the best wey to reconfigure my MP3 library to play in the order that you find the titles on the purchsed CD? I'd prefer to not change each track manually. I'm fairly proficient at Excel and am hoping that I can make the changes from an imported folder and then use Excel or a database to export to a folder that will play in the proper (not alpha) that it was recorded. It would be great if it could display the title without the number prefix.
Check, if if really uses the title tag - if so, you can append the title tag with an action as described in the FAQs /t/967/1
the format string would look like this:
$num(%track%,2) - %title%.
It could also be that your car stereo uses the filename. If you want to rename the files then use the (menu) converter tag-filename and a mask that looks like this:
%album% _ $num(%track%,2) _ %title%
This would then create filenames that group the tracks by album and then by track - pretty much like the CD it came from.
BTW: what does the filename now look like?
Actually: if your stereo really uses the title as sort criterion then you would also have to refill the title tags as with only a leading tracknumber you would get all the files with a leading one, then all those with a leading 2 and so on - but probably you want to have them album by album.
As your car stereo apparentyl follows very specific rules I would always create a separate set of copied files to be used on that device and keep the other library as it is.
Thanks, You've been a big help. but I still need what probably is simple help. Is there a user guide or a PDF version of the HELP file?
See the attached screen capture for what the filename looks like. As you can see, I've already tried changing the filename with a leading numeral, but the songs continue to be played alphabetically by title.
I've confirmed that the car stereo does actually use the title and sorts alphabetically. In the example album shown, it will play Belinda as the first song , then Benjamin, etc. "Merigolds and Tan..." is played not as track 3 but with 2/3 the way through album and all of the Interludes are played with the "I"s. I can change the title in "Properties" by placing a leading numeral as shown in the first track, but to do that for thousands of songs (all albums in my library) is unreasonable. I'm looking fot a way to bulk-edit each album.
For the treatment to format the tag field title with a leading number and the trailing title please go back to my first answer as the described wayis the ACTION of choice.
If you use a character as separator that is hardly ever used in common language(like the underscore) it is ver easy to remove the leading number again. if you want to incorporate the files in your home library again, yet, I would advise to make a copy and treat all the files with that action.
Also: if your car stereo uses the title with that leading number, then it will paly, if you add several albums, first all the tracks with no 1 from each album, then those with number 2 etc.
So, to keep the albums together, you would have to pack
ALBUM, TRACK, TITLE into the TITLE.
So the formatting string for the car stereo adaptation action would look like this:
%album%$num(%track%,2)%title%
Thanks for your help. I've found that I can do most of what I want by using Convert/"Filename - Tag" and the simple command %title% to copy the filename column to the title column for an entire album. Most of my filenames have been converted with leading numerals as in my screen capture above. I used another program to do this when I assumed that the car was reading filenames.
This process still leaves the leading numerals displayed along with the title when viewed on the car's display, which I presume is unavoidable given that the stereo system apparently reads track ID3 title data for its display information. But it does greatly reduce the process of individually renaming each track using Windows Explorer (3-4 mouse clicks and data entry for each track!). I expect to convert only the albums where playing tracks alphabetically makes no sense such as where interludes provide segway to the next track and for musical soundtracks that follow the storyline (e.g., Phantom of the Opera). Also, for some of my favorite music I've grown to expect certain tracks to follow the CD presentation rather than alphabetically.
