How to manage 30GB iTunes (Mac) library on 8GB Clip+?

Hi there I just got my first non-iPod player, a 8GB Clip+.

I have my music on a Mac with iTunes which I used  to sync to an iPod using playlists according to genre or mood (using the comments fields eg chill/run/etc).  This way I could cycle through my library as with every iPod sync the tracks’ info was updated and replaced with new songs.  Very handy and, apart from setting up the playlists, fully automatic.

Now with the Clip+ I know I can only do drag&drop from my Mac.  I know someone here  wrote a script for iTunes playlists but I do not think these can be automatically refreshed with each sync as the Clip does not communicate with iTunes.

I looked through quite a few of the threads here and it seems that most of you are just listening to their music according to artist or album.  So, I am just wondering how the power users here are listening to their Clips to get the most out of their bigger libraries and make sure that they are listening to all their library tracks over the long term.  

Thanks.

scuba wrote:

Hi there I just got my first non-iPod player, a 8GB Clip+.

 

I have my music on a Mac with iTunes which I used  to sync to an iPod using playlists according to genre or mood (using the comments fields eg chill/run/etc).  This way I could cycle through my library as with every iPod sync the tracks’ info was updated and replaced with new songs.  Very handy and, apart from setting up the playlists, fully automatic.

 

Now with the Clip+ I know I can only do drag&drop from my Mac.  I know someone here  wrote a script for iTunes playlists but I do not think these can be automatically refreshed with each sync as the Clip does not communicate with iTunes.

 

I looked through quite a few of the threads here and it seems that most of you are just listening to their music according to artist or album.  So, I am just wondering how the power users here are listening to their Clips to get the most out of their bigger libraries and make sure that they are listening to all their library tracks over the long term.  

 

Thanks.

First thing I would suggest to you is getting an expansion card…look around a bit online, and you can generally find an 8GB card under $20, and a 16GB for around $40. For $200 you can get a 32GB card, but for most of us, 32GB cards can wait a while.

If you add a 16GB, that gives you a combined usable total of 22.73GB, which is what I have. From there, my answer for trying to somewhat keep in touch with the entire collection is the shuffle mode. Enable shuffle, select Play All, and there you go. If I have a hankering for one particular artist that day, I might slect Play All for just that artist, with shuffle enabled…from there, if I have a new album, I will listen to it in the proper method until I know the album…then it will enter the shuffle rotation. 

My total library will not fit on the Clip+ as it stands, and even if I had a 32GB card, it wouldn’t hold everything…but I’ve found that with my 22.73GB that I can carry just about anything I might want to listen to on a given day…and the shuffle mode will bring up songs that I might not have thought to play, from artists that I may not have thought of in a while.

Enjoy your Clip+…it may not be quite as seamless an experience for a Mac user, but there have been threads here in the forums regarding how to make the Sansa and Macs work together.

Dang! I have an 8gb w 8gb card and will probably have lots of space left over when I am done ripping my cd’s!!!

mcostas wrote:
Dang! I have an 8gb w 8gb card and will probably have lots of space left over when I am done ripping my cd’s!!!

Give it time . . . you’ll be surprised how quickly your music collection can grow.

And it never stops, at least not in my case.

Thanks for the reply.  I assume that when the clip shuts itself off then the shuffle memory of what’s been played is wiped clean next time I switch it on so the songs I heard previously have the same likelihood of being played again in suffle mode this time.

scuba wrote:

Thanks for the reply.  I assume that when the clip shuts itself off then the shuffle memory of what’s been played is wiped clean next time I switch it on so the songs I heard previously have the same likelihood of being played again in suffle mode this time.

 

 

I’m not 100% sure, to be honest, because I don’t always shuffle all…but given the size of the player and understandable limited amount of RAM it could have, you may be right.

There are a couple of artists newer to my collection, that each day I’ve been listening to one album from each of them, in the traditional beginning-to-end manner, in addition to my daily podcasts…but once these new artists are assimilated into my internal mental memory, I’ll go back to my usual shuffling ways.

scuba wrote:

Thanks for the reply.  I assume that when the clip shuts itself off then the shuffle memory of what’s been played is wiped clean next time I switch it on so the songs I heard previously have the same likelihood of being played again in suffle mode this time.

 

You assume incorrectly.

The shuffle list is retained until you cycle shuffle mode, after which a new list is built.  The list is retained even when the device is powered off.

I like that the shuffle list is generated when shuffle is first selected.  You can skip back through the shuffle list to replay a track you may have missed as well.

Bob  :stuck_out_tongue: