Need A little help please! Micro SDHC card and Mp3's issues!

MP3 players Sansa Fuze
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Hello!  I had asked a few questions the other day in another post about How the card fit in the player…  Here http://forums.sandisk.com/sansa/board/message?board.id=sansafuse&thread.id=5465

I feel all my questions were replied to just fine so we bought the card! The issue I’m having now… I popped in the new Sandisk 8 GB micro SDHC class 2 card in my wife’s almost full 4 GB Fuze *about 318 left on internal memory* My wife picked up a new CD she wanted the same day we picked up the new card and that CD is KENNY CHESNEY- Lucky old sun…  It’s a two cd set with 11 tracks on cd#1 and 4 tracks on cd #2…  OK I use windows xp with sp3 patch and windows Medea Player 11 to rip and add music…

I ripped the cd’s in WP-11 at 192 mp3 format and then dragged and dropped each cd to the sansa external card under Fuze…  Both Cd’s showed up in windows MP-11 when looked at from the Fuze external card but when I unplug the player and pull up the main cd by artist that really has 11 tracks the unit only shows 1/7… 7 tracks and the 7 tracks  show up they are in-fact on the external card * little  sd icon next to each song*… Now if I look on the internal memory that’s where the rest of the tracks are… 

So for the heck of it I deleted the cd from the external card that still showed all 11 track in windows player -11…  I then pulled out the card…  I disconnected the player and reset it…  Reconnected the player and loaded the music to just the internal memory as usual and still issues… Number 1  the first song is still lost in the player with only 10 tracks showing up under that cd…  But listd as 1/10…  What’s going on…  CD? New SDhc card? My wife’s player worked flawlessly up till this point…  Granted I had some weired issues with my 8gb Fuse…  I’m ready to start pulling out my hair!!  Thanks George:cry:

Oh cd two of that set has 4 bonus  tracks and that installs fine on either the internal or external memory…  I did remove the external memory card before trying it in the internal memory. Again help!!! :dizzy_face:

NEW UPDATE QUSTION?

I tried a few other CD’s and noticed that on both of our Players without external cards installed… They’re are a few CD’s that have different track numbers then on the original CD’s…  If looked up a cd under artist this brings you  to the CD of your choice with missing song or songs… But if I look up the CD under album it will bring up the cd of my choice with all tracks!!  What’s the difference? Shouldn’t it be the same? It should bring up the same info both way for whatever CD… Is this a firmware glitch?  It’s hard to know what your not hearing when bringing up the cd by the artist’s when you have over 1000 songs I don’t remember all track on all cd so if it says 1/13 with a missing song it’s hard to know…  Again is this firmware?  Was this fixed in the new firmware? I am still running the last firmware 01.01.11a and was going to wait for the November up date before re-flashing the player…

Message Edited by George-W on 10-17-2008 11:20 AM

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Hi,

i don’t use WMP11, but maybe something is going wrong with the tags.

The Fuze is only looking at the ID3-Tags in the mp3 files. If you look up under artist, you will find not only one album of

the artist, but every track from the artist. It doesn’t matter which album name is in the tag.

If you look up under album, it will show you every track with the same album tag, ignoring the artist tag.

In your case, it seems that the artist tag isn’t uniform on all the album tracks.

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Thanks for the reply!  Ok so I rip my own cd’s, say I rip a Sheryl Crow “Detours” in that cd there are 14 tracks… when I load it in on either my wife’s 4gb Fuze or my 8gb Fuse and look up that cd from artist it will only show 13 tracks 1/13 and play ony 13 tracks. Now if I look up that CD from album it will show all 14 tracks and play 14 tracks…  Many other CD will show up that strange way…  If the tags are messed up what do I need to look at? I thought if you rip your own music and retrieves all the info that should be it, I would think … I don’t fill out the info and tags myself only on a few old disks…   Can you be more specific as what i should look for in my tags on new up to date releases? Thanks for the help!! George

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George -

It sounds like you’ve got an ID3 tag issue that you’ll have to manually edit/correct with a program like MP3TAG. In it you can open open the entire album or 2 discs if you prefer and see what is different, causing your Fuze to read the info incorrectly.

Believe it or not, I find many more ‘boo-boos’ on CD’s than on most downloaded music. I had 1 CD that had I think, 12 tracks. The info for track 7 was missing and the info for Track 8 was in it’s place. Track 8’s info was actually Track 9, and so on through Track 12. That was a real mess. Luckily, that doesn’t happen very often.

Sometimes it can be as simple as a duet or collaboration with another artist. That’s quite popular today. In fact, it’s the only reason Carlos Santana is still selling records; by teaming up with whoever happens to be hot this week, and capitalizing on their success and ‘piggy-backing’ on the gravy train. But I digress. :stuck_out_tongue:

Sometimes, out of respect or contract legalities, the “guest” artist will get ‘top billing’ (or 1st listing) on the track in the ARTIST field. The album artist’s name (let’s use your example, Kenny Chesney) is listed after whoever he sang with, collaborated with, shared the microphone with, or whatever. The names are usually separated by a semi-colon ( ; ), but I’ve also seen forward slashes ( / ) which really plays havoc with computer systems. But this also confuses the mp3 players that rely on ID3 tags to display the album specifics. It will also give you another artist in your ARTIST menu on your player, and say the album contains 11 songs; 4 or which are duets with another artist. That means when you look under ARTIST on your player, you’ll see only 7 songs listed for that album under the main artist’s name. The other 4 will be ‘credited’ to whoever else is “guest-appearing”.

This can get really sticky on “Duet” albums where every song ‘features’ a different artist singing along with the main artist. And a lot have done work like this (usually when their creative juices have dried up and they need some quick cash and residuals). Tony Bennett, Elton John, Kenny G; just to name a few.

Usually when I find this situation, I will remove the (for lack of a better term) secondary artist’s name from the ARTIST field in MP3TAG, and then so I know that someone else is also performing on this track, I’ll add something like this to the end of the track title [Duet with Sara Evans] or [feat. Sara Evans]. It makes it a little longer to scroll through on the screen, but it keeps everything nice & tidy in the tag business.

Another thing to look for (which you can easily do when all the tracks are open in MP3TAG) is if the Artist has an “and” in the name. Names like “Red & the Red Hots” or “Diana Ross & the Supremes”. Do all the tracks have the ampersand ( & ) or do some have the word “and”? This will screw up your listings on your player too!

And if you’re a ‘Big Band’ fan? Look Out! Many Big Band Leaders had several bands during their heyday, so the CD that you rip may contain music performed by Glenn Miller, but with which band? These will all be credited in the ARTIST field of the tag, but will cause havoc and confusion to you unless you weed out the chaf and apply your own tag-editing skills.

If you haven’t already downloaded and started using MP3TAG or something similar, I would strongly encourage you to do so. It’s a necessary tool and once you get in the habit of using it on everything you rip, you’ll be much happier when you can look at the info displayed while a song is playing and be confident that it is correct. :smiley:

Message Edited by Tapeworm on 10-17-2008 05:10 PM

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Tapeworm,

Much thanks for all your info… I think I have a better understanding now… I can do some Tag editing in WMP-11 I just right klick and edit the field I want to…  But stils it didn’t work for me…  I’ll have to play with it a bit more i guess…  Maybe I’ll try and down the editing program you suggested…  But it looks like WMP-11 will edit… I’m trying to make sure the the artist name is first or should I just get rid of the contributing artist altogather?  George

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Compared to the “Advanced Tag Editor” in WiMP11, MP3Tag is a professional grade tool, versus the pliers and Crescent wrench available in WiMP.  (Not bagging on the Crescent wrench adjustable spanner from Cooper, as it’s a handy tool.)

Just think of those kitchen drawer tools that seem to get the job done, quick and dirty.

Try MP3Tag, and once you get the hang of it, your Sansa will be happy.  The application does quite a few things well, but there is a learning curve with it.  The interface can be a challenge.

Bob  :smileyvery-happy:

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Thanks Everyone!

Just being new to all of this and being I was able to bring up a CD with either artist or ablum I though it should have had the hole CD both ways…  I know I’m going to have to learn how to Tag edit first… Then maybe the  hole CD’s will come up both ways… At least now I know. I  just got use to seeing what CD I wanted to hear by bringing up the artist of my choice and seeing what cd I have by them…  Now I’ll just have to take a few more steps and after deciding what I want to hear I’ll just go to album and bring it up that way. For now!  Till I learn how to set it up better with the editor…

My special thanks to Tapeworm,

For taking the time in helping me understand what i need to do to get the CD’s to come up right and what i need to look for when editing… George

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@george_w wrote:

Tapeworm,

Maybe I’ll try and down the editing program you suggested…  But it looks like WMP-11 will edit… I’m trying to make sure the WAMPUM artist name is first or should I just get rid of the contributing artist altogather?

George -

MP3Tag gives you much more control over the tags than WMP 11, so you can do much more with it. Simple little typos and such are fine to edit in WMP, but you really want MP3tag (or something similar) for more extensive corrections. MP3Tag is free and works like a charm.

Another point I just remembered . . . sometimes CD’s are re-mastered from old vinyl LP’s. Because of the time limitations of the old 33 1/3 format (approx. 45 minutes), the CD’s have much more available space on them (an hour or better). So a lot of old LP’s converted to CD’s actually have 2 or 3 more ‘bonus’ tracks on them than what was originally on the LP as recorded at the time. These are usually marked/highlighted in the ID3 tag with [#] or [*] or sometimes both after the song title. Get rid of all this extraneous garbage. You don’t need it, and it could cause the Sansa to stumble or choke on the tag resulting in freezing or hanging at the beginning of the song. I haven’t tested this at length, but it could be possible. Nonetheless you don’t need it, so I’d advise removing it.

As far as the Artist field, I find it better to remove the ‘contributing’ artist altogether leaving only the main artist’s name in this field. I give the ‘contributing’ artist their due as I explained in my previous post by adding their name to the song title field [feat. Carlos Santana] or [duet with Barbra Streisand]. This way the Sansa’s happy, and I still know when the song is playing who that 2nd voice or awesome guitar lick belongs to. :wink:

Message Edited by Tapeworm on 10-18-2008 03:41 PM

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@george_w wrote:
Ok so I rip my own cd’s, say I rip a Sheryl Crow “Detours” in that cd there are 14 tracks… when I load it in on either my wife’s 4gb Fuze or my 8gb Fuse and look up that cd from artist it will only show 13 tracks 1/13 and play ony 13 tracks.

George -

I picked up this CD from the library today. I’ll bet your missing track is #4, right? This is one of those instances I was talking about where the ‘contributing’ artist is given 1st billing (Ahmed Alhirmi; Sheryl Crow). This really plays havoc with the artist listings on the Sansas. I’ll also bet if you looked up Ahmed Alhirmi in your ARTIST menu, you’d find him, and with only 1 song under his belt. And you’d probably wonder, “Who’s THIS goomer? I’ve never heard of him before!”

A simple little ID3tag edit will make this ‘right as rain’. :smiley:

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Thanks!  Ya you right!  I tried to use windows advanced media player to edit it… But that didn’t work for me… I know I’ll have to use the tag editing program you gave me the link for… But I’ll have to start doing this stuff on the wife’s desk top as my laptop only has a few gig of room left… I only have a 30GB HD in it…  But ya I did pay Ahmed Alhirimi just to see who the heck it was and found it was Sheryl Crow! I have many odd ball artists that I’m going  to edit. Is this also causing the 1sec skip between songs. As one song ends and just before the next starts it will play the last sec or two of the song the just ended I think… It so short it’s hard to tell… If I bring up the CD by album it does come up fine all track but I’ll still have that small skip…  I’m just going to have to start using my wife’s desk top so I can install a few programs. I did download the tag editor you gave me the link for… I guess WMP-11  advanced editor is not worth much as I got rid of every entry other then Sheryl Crow… Thanks for taking the time to hunt down the CD and find my issue with it… This shows me what I need to do… it helps me confirm and understand a little better.  George 

Tapeworm,

UPDATE, Yes!! I did go back into the CD and edited all the songs not just the one that was not coming up when brought up by artist, and it worked!!  Yes!!  I just tried it again like i said this time editing all the songs. Even used WMP-11 to edit…  Still have the lest sec kind a skip thing going on though!!  But I have 1/14 showing now!!  Are you hearing the skip between songs?  Ah I know I need to edit that out to with the other program with the link you gave me for that too, I didn’t down load that link, let me go find it …  I am learing thanks to you!! Again Thanks you! George 

Message Edited by George-W on 10-24-2008 08:58 PM