Playlists for dummies: taming the sansa clip

Connect the MP3 player with the USB connector
Go to My Computer and open Sansa Clip folder
Go to the Music Folder
In the Music Folder, right click and make a New Folder and name it.
Copy and paste all the songs you want to be in a playlist into the New Folder.

Right click the New Folder with the songs you just dropped in and click on Make Playlist  <— I do not have that option, any reason why??  I’d LOVE it if this worked!!

However, I was reading another post and the same thing is worded differently and it worked.

The above instructions should read:

Go into the new folder you created, highlight all the songs in the folder, then right click and select “make playlist”

 
Name the Playlist
Disconnect the MP3 player
Enjoy.

But it’s still not working for me.  I’m getting closer though.  I have a playlist folder on my sansa now and I even have a playlist.wpl file in the playlist folder.  I can see it via explorer but once I unplug the device, I see nothing :cry:

Well, I still see the playlist folder on the device but nothing’s in it, just the golist. 

Message Edited by billy on 04-30-2009 06:46 AM

Message Edited by billy on 04-30-2009 06:55 AM

I GOT IT!!!    :smileyvery-happy:

I’m not totally sure what the final trick was but here’s what I did:

1st!  update Windows Media Player to version 11.   I’ve been working on a work computer, had version 9 installed.

Then watch this video http://mp3support.sandisk.com/wmp11/wmp11playlist.wmv

After watching the video, I was able to do what the person was saying but still nothing came up.

After reading more “playlist” post’s, I caught onto people talking about MTP mode vs. MSC mode.

I’ve been tinkering around with these modes all along but now for some reason, my computer is indeed showing the device in 2 different ways when connected to the computer, when before only MTP mode showed the device (via windows explorer)

If the sansa device shows up as a drive letter (via windows explorer) like…Sansa Clip (E), it won’t work.

Disconnect it and set the setting to MTP, now re-connect the device.

Now when I look at it via windows Explorer, I see a cute little device and it says: Sansa Clip 4GB, as opposed to an actualy drive letter. (and the file structure looks completly different then when it’s connected via MSC mode)

AHHHHH… I just looked under the “playlist” folder on the device and sure enough there’s my playlist file and it ends in a .pla extension.

2 cool!!!

I only made 1 playlist with 1 audio tune for testing reasons, it works.

Now I’ll see about making a few more playlist and see how it all comes together.

Unlike some people on these forums, if anyone has questions as to what I did, ask away and I’ll try to help.  :smiley:

@miikerman wrote:
Note:  files placed in the Clip’s Podcasts and Audiobooks folders do not need to be tagged; the Clip will use the folder and file names for purposes of display and navigation, in that case.

Yeah, I have been using the podcast folder for that. There are some weird aspects, like it doesn’t go to the start of each song, but the last place you left off. Audiobooks doesn’t work for me when I put music in… just seems to disappear. 

@daft wrote:
Please post the procedure for those with a “real” machine, like a Mac or Linux  :smiley:

Lol.

Sorry, I couldn’t help myself on that challenge.  I think if I dug this out of the closet, it just might work.

µsansa

Thanks so much!  I was trying to use Rhapsody and it was making me a crazy person.  In the past I used Windows Explorer and folders but not playlists.  Appreciate you took the trouble to write it up!

The URL for the bash script has gone bad.

I’m not surprised, after almost 4 years. This forum went through a complete re-vamp and new host a couple years ago. All previously good links were broken. Your best bet now would probably be Google.

 :smiley: Thank you so much for your help, Billy; you gave the solution that worked!

How do you change to MTP mode in the Sansa Clipsport? I cannot find the option in the settings option on the device.

You’re in the wrong forum–there’s a separate one for Clip Sport.

But the Sport does not have MTP mode, only  MSC.

http://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/61/~/enabling-or-forcing-msc-mode-on-your-sansa-player

Thanks! I always thought that all players have the option to have both MTP and MSC mode. I just wondered why it’s not available on all.

No doubt, an engineering decision to try to save costs, in the cut-down Sport.

Or maybe the whole MTP project of digital rights management/misery/mess was finally seen as the infringement on consumer options that it is. You can find mp3s of anything. The whole protected/encrypted/MTP thing was too restrictive.

Except that, MTP mode still is needed for many services, such as Rhapsody and some library lending services.

Just wanted to share my new discovery. There is an application called Sansa Clip Playlist Creator which automates the process of creating a playlist, using it is easy as counting to three so I won’t write tutorials here. Tested it and works wonderfully. So if any of you folks still have old clip in your shelf it’s time to blow out the dust and check this little baby here. Props for anyone who created it.

Thank you for these instructions. I’ve followed them to the letter but am only getting empty .pla files (0 bytes).

I tried downloading the Sansa Clip playlist creator tool that someone recommended but I keep getting an error with that as well: “one or some file paths doesn’t exist in player.  Tracks without valid paths will not be working.”

Extremely frustrating!

I’m not a big playlister, but here are a few things to keep in mind: 

.pla playlists always show up as 0 bytes. If I understand it right, they are binary sets of commands that are tiny. 

Playlists are lists of instructions. They aren’t folders full of music files–they just tell the player “get this file from this directory.” Because you are getting the path error, the playlist might be telling the Sansa to look where it can’t find the files. It is possible that you have made .pla playlists that are telling the player  to get the file from the directory where it is located on your computer–not on the player.

I’m not familiar with this playlist creator tool, but if you can’t make the .pla playlists work, it looks like the Playlist Creator can make .m3u playlists instead. They are readable as txt files with Wordpad or Notepad, and you can see where they are telling the player to look for the files.  

Another program that was good for making Sansa playlists was Winamp, now discontinued. But you can still find it at www.oldversion.com . You can also try the free version of www.mediamonkey.com, which will make playlists. For both of those, put the Sansa in Settings/System Settings/USB Mode/MSC. 

Or you could just use Windows Media Player, though I believe the limitation of WMP is that all the files have to be EITHER in the internal memory or on the card, so it can’t bounce back and forth. 

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I gave up on this long ago. Spent countless hours on it. Wanted to have multiple playlists that pulled from both the internal and extended memory. MTP mode won’t let you backup playlists that you spent hours on. Thought I had the solution then found out that the Clip only supports a maximum of 999 songs on a playlist. Finally just bought a bigger card, out all my music on the card in MSC mode, installed rockbox, and made my playlists in winamp. all is well now.

:slight_smile: