Recently got my Greenline II Estate, and I'm loving it!!..

 

When I picked up the car it came with the iPod MDI cable rather than a USB one, I do have an aging iPod nano, but it's on it's last legs, so I bought the USB cable as I have a 32Gb stick with a couple of weeks of music stored on it!.

 

One question I do have, however, is do I have to store the music on the Stick in a 'Specific' directory structure?, It plays the music no problems if I select a Specific Artist/Album, but I can't seem to get the Swing radio/MDI to do 'Mix/Random' playback of the ENTIRE DRIVE, it will only mix within what ever ALBUM you happen to be in!.

 

I've tried 'Browsing' to the 'Top' of the directory structure and hitting 'Play All' then 'Mix' but it will only Mix the First Album of the First Artist, then once it's done that it moves onto the Next Album/Artist etc... Where as the iPod did a Mix of the ENTIRE DRIVE no problems!

 

Thing is I don't want to have to 'Browse' 'Scroll' 'Select' a specific album whilst driving, as that takes my concentration away from the road!  :think:

 

My Current Structure is:

 

Drive:\Artist\Album\Song.mp3

 

Which I thought would work no problems! :(

 

Cheers Guys

Sim

You don't say what unit you have but here's how it worked on my last car's Bolero:Put a single track in the root diectory.  Start playing that then select mix and it will mix every track on the disk.  Put a single track in the "artist" level directory, play that and select mix and it will mix everything in that artist.

 

On my current Amundsen I just select mix and have the choice of album or everything.

You might need to format the stick/drive to FAT32 then reload the music files.

It's the Standard 'Swing' and 'MDI' combination in the Greenline II Estate.

 

I'll try the Single 'short' track in the root of the stick and see if that works. Cheers Dude!

 

The Stick is FAT32 (I made sure of that!)

 

Unless someone with the same combo has a different suggestion!

Edited 13 August, 201312 yr by Simoneale1973

Hi there,

 

Just bought myself a Fabia Monte Carlo estate with the Swing audio.

 

I too cannot mix all the toons on the flash drive.  Only the first folder then the next folder and so on.

 

I've tried the suggestion above with the lone file in the root but it does not work.

 

Does anyone have any other ideas or is it a limitation on the system?

 

Thanks.

That's exactly the problem I'm still getting! 

 

It'll happily Mix within a Sub Folder (Album not Artist) but will not mix the whole 32Gb stick!.

 

Even if I put a short track on it's own in the Root of the stick (I had the old 4 tone sound from a Cassette tape!) it just repeats this track over and over and over and over...

 

I now just listen to my Artists and Albums in order an don't try to mix

 

Also Mix Repeats tracks! which isn't great if you want to listen to everything, not the same tracks randomly!!

I'm going to try creating a playlist tonight to see if that works...

Let me know!!

AT LAST...  SORTED!!!

 

After following ideas from this thread: http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/193621-mdi-hard-drive-playlists-possible/?p=2305439

 

You just need to create a Playlist.m3u file and place it in the root of the drive.  I use MP3Tag for this.  You can tag everything with it using the built in scrapers and then create the Playlist.

 

I gave my drive this structure:

 

F:\

|     \MUSIC

|          \Artist - Album

|                \01 - Artist - Title

|                \02 - Artist - Title

|          \Artist - Album

|                \01 - Artist - Title

|                \02 - Artist - Title

|

Playlist.m3u  -  The playlist file goes into the root of the drive.

 

 

You can't make a file higher than a folder so the MDI will try to play from the MUSIC folder first.  So all you have to do on the head unit is press Folder, Top, then >> once.  The Playlist.m3u should appear now and you can press Play then Mix.  Boom!!!

 

Using your PC and once you have the file structure like mine above, you will need to right-click on your MDI drive letter (mine pops up on F:\) then select MP3Tag.

MP3Tag will open and it should recurse all the mp3's on the drive.

Then goto File, Create Playlist.

As you've selected the drive letter (top level) it will save directly onto the root of the drive and work perfectly.

 

Here's a snapshot of mine:

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:224,Naughty Boy ft Sam Smith - La La La
MUSIC\Funky Toons - Various\01 - Naughty Boy ft Sam Smith - La La La.mp3
#EXTINF:224,Jessie J ft B.O.B - Price Tag
MUSIC\Funky Toons - Various\02 - Jessie J ft B.O.B - Price Tag.mp3

 

 

You can edit the Playlist.m3u with notepad and move the albums around as they go in alphabetical order otherwise.  Up to you.

 

It has to be saved in the top level.  I tried creating the playlist in a another folder but it doesn't work as the MDI doesn't assign a drive letter when connected.  So it has to be absolute paths.  The MDI seems to default and latch straight onto music files.  Putting the Playlist outside the MUSIC folder on the root makes it easier to find when navigating.  Literally 3 clicks.

 

I'm not sure how the Ipod just does this.  Maybe iTunes creates a playlist when it syncs with your device.

 

Hope this makes sense and helps some people. 

 

You might need to format the stick/drive to FAT32 then reload the music files.

^^^^^^^^^^^ what he said.

Fantastic dude!!

 

I took your guide above and did it in Winamp! I was able to create a Playlist on the Drive and then Randomize it from within Winamp!

 

Now when I get my Furby back from the Body Shop today I'll have a play!

NiCE one.  Let us know how it goes.

Got my Baby back today and immediately plugged my 32Gb stick back into the MDI and hit Play on the .m3u file...

 

Initially I was disappointing to find "Error Reading File" on the display, until it skipped to the next track and played just fine, then the next etc...

 

Apart from a couple of duff tracks and some weird Meta Data on some of my tracks, it's working fine and playing it's way through 2 weeks of Solid music!!

Update for all the people out there who have a large USB Stick with a Large Music Library onboard!!!...

 

My 32Gb USB3 Stick (Lexar JumpDrive) has 5,068 tracks (nearly 2 weeks of solid listening!) leaving only 2.46Mb space on the disc!

 

After 2 (nearly 3) months of playback from the Above Playlist (created under Winamp to enable randomisation) was getting near track 999, and I thought "I wonder if it'll go to Track 1,000 or back to Track 1!?!" Guess what it did!!! Yep You've guessed it!, it went back to Track 1 and started all over again! ignoring the remaining 4,068 tracks in the playlist! :(

 

So I took the stick indoors, Plugged it back into my PC and fired up Winamp again!...

 

I then proceeded to create 5 more Playlists (for a grand total of 6) and moved (copied and deleted) 845 randomised tracks over to each Playlist (leaving 843 in the Original)... 

 

Now my MDI loads and starts the Playlist faster (as it's only accessing 845ish tracks) each time I start my car!! Just hope that once Playlist 1 is complete, playlist 2 starts etc... I'll keep you posted!!

Edited 20 January, 201412 yr by Simoneale1973