First time user of Sansa Clip MP3 player

Hello,

I never had an MP3 player before.  I set up an account through Rhapsody, but only want to download (or upload?) music that is on Windows Media Player to the MP3 player.  Can someone provide me with a brief tutorial on how to do this.  I tried to follow the instructions that came with the unit, but am having a hard time following them.  As I said, I’m really quite “ignorant” when it comes to MP3 players, so forgive me if my questions seem silly.  In addition, any additional advice you can give me regarding the unit would be most appreciated.

John

You realize that with Rhapsody, after your free trial period, you have to pay the monthly fee to be able to continue playing the songs, right? 

Other sources for music include your own CDs (just rip them to MP3 or other computer files; you can use Windows Media Player and other rippers for that); and numerous Internet sources, such as http://freealbums.blogsome.com/album-directory-a-z/.   Plus thousands of podcasts are readily available for free; see podcastalley.com.

Plus, you could explore monthly MP3 purchase subscriptions such as emusic.com; here’s an offer for a free 30 days, with 50 downloads (if you quit in the first 30 days, there’s no charge (really–it works and is easy to do/quit, without any issue; but you need a credit card to sign up)): http://www.emusic.com/me (you also get a free audiobook, if you want, and just have to cancel that part of the subscription within 2 weeks; again, easy and simple to do).

Hello,

Thanks for replying.  I thought that you had to create an account before you could download songs?  Thats why I signed up on Rhapsody.  So, apparently you don’t need to create an account, correct?

If thats the case, I’ll simply cancel Rhapsody.

Thanks,

John

Yeah, the documentation and CD that comes with the Clip, at first glance, seems to imply that you need to install Rhapsody to use your Clip.  You don’t.

Unless you really want subscription music such as Rhapsody, where you have to pay a fee every month to keep your music, you’ll probably want to acquire music through other sources … ripping from CD, buying from amazon.com etc., and then copy them to your Clip.  You don’t need to use a music manager program like WMP to do this, you can just copy-and-paste from your PC to the Clip’s internal memory using Windows Explorer (assuming you’re using Windows). 

The Clip can be set to two modes, MSC and MTP.  Copying music to your Clip in MSC is faster (at least that’s been my experience), while MTP is necessary if you plan to put subscription music on your Clip.

Free music (most is a little obscure) :

http://freealbums.blogsome.com/album-directory-a-z/

Cheap music:

http://dealnews.com/categories/Movies-Music-Books/Music/MP3-Downloads/527.html

Message Edited by PromisedPlanet on 06-14-2009 09:12 AM

Boy, that’s pretty dodgy as to Rhapsody.  I’ve never had it and likely never will, and have been downloading away, happily.

Promised, don’t knock your free music source, some of the music there isn’t all that obscure:  the classical stuff.

And again, if you’re into “radio talk shows,” Podcastalley.com is a great guide to what’s there–you could spend the rest of your life trying to listen to them all. 

Thanks for replying.  I have a bunch of albums on WMP.  How do I convert these files to MP3 files?  Once converted, how do I download to the MP3 player? 

Sorry for all the questions, but I am new to all this.

Sincerely,

John

What format are your songs in now?  The Clip supports MP3, WMA, WAV, OGG, Flac and Audible.  If your songs are already in one of these formats, you can either use WMP to synchronize your Clip with the songs already in your library (see WMP’s Help menu for more information on synchronizing), or you can just copy the songs directly from your PC’s hard drive to the Clip’s “music” folder.  (When you connect the Clip to your PC, you should see it show up under “My Computer” ).

Hello,

Well, I connected the MP3 player to my computer, opened up WMP & on the right hand side the Sansa clip was displayed & below it was a sync list & it said to drag items here to create a list to sync to Sansa clip or shuffle music to Sansa clip.  I dragged an album of Alice Cooper songs to the sync list &  clicked on sync list.  When it was done, I went back to My Computer & the Alice Cooper album was  listed & I noticed it was already on my MP3 player.  I didn’t have to drag and drop.

Is this all there is to it?

Thanks,

John

If you can click the play button on your Clip and hear Alice, you’ve done it.

Hello again,

Thanks to everyone for all your help.  One last question:  How do you change the mode on the clip to MSC? 

Thanks,

JOhn

Did you check the Settings menu?

Thank you everybody.

John

@sockers50 wrote:

Hello again,

 

Thanks to everyone for all your help.  One last question:  How do you change the mode on the clip to MSC? 

 

Thanks,

 

JOhn

 

 

On the Clip, under Settings/USB.

As to WMP and syncing, I really dislike WMP–I feel like I lose control.  And so I simply drag and drop (or copy and paste) the music that I want to transfer, from where it is on my computer to the Clip’s Music folder.

Hello,

When I connect the MP3 player to my computer & click on My Computer, I see the Sansa clip icon.  If I double click on it, I see several folders, including, Music, Podcast, Record, etc.  Are you saying wherever my music is on the computer, I simply drag the song to the Music folder?  I tried that with one song from WMP but when I opened the Music folder nothing was there.

Thanks,

John

@sockers50 wrote:

Hello,

When I connect the MP3 player to my computer & click on My Computer, I see the Sansa clip icon.  If I double click on it, I see several folders, including, Music, Podcast, Record, etc.  Are you saying wherever my music is on the computer, I simply drag the song to the Music folder?  I tried that with one song from WMP but when I opened the Music folder nothing was there.

Thanks,

John

Exactly! Open a second My Computer window which shows the folders where your music is. Then, in the Clip window, double-click the music folder to open it, then drag your albums from the other window right into there and drop them.

I’m not sure what happened to your song.  One thing to note:  files transferred from your computer to the Clip while in USB MSC connection mode only show on your computer when you’re connected to your Clip in MSC mode; likewise as to MTP mode.  (But all the songs will play on your Clip–they’re there, but just not visible, depending on your USB connection mode.)  Maybe that is your situation.  And a good reason to set your Clip to either MSC or MTP mode and to avoid the Auto setting (under Settings/USB), for consistency. 

Are you saying that when you use Windows Explorer to look at the contents of the Clip’s MUSIC folder, there’s nothing there?  And you didn’t switch modes between MSC and MTP in between the drag-and-drop, and viewing the MUSIC folder?

If so, it sounds like you just had an unsuccessful drag-and-drop operation.  I don’t use WMP so I don’t know whether it’s possible to drag-and-drop from a WMP window to a Windows Explorer window.

If you can actually see the file using Windows Explorer, it’s possible (though unlikely) that the song was in a format not recognized by the Clip.  What is its file extension?  (.mp3, .wma etc.)

Message Edited by PromisedPlanet on 06-15-2009 07:41 AM

This may seem quite obvious to most, but how do you tell which format a song is in.  I mean with my songs in WMP, what’s the easist way to tell?

Thanks,

John

Right-click the track and select “Properties”. For “Location” it will list the full path (the folder the file is in), ending with the filename and extension (WMA, MP3, etc.)