new to MP3

SanDisk MP3 players Sansa® Clip | Sansa® Clip+
1

My 2 kids got  Sansa Clip 1GB mp3 for Christmas. I have so far managed to get them charging correctly on my computer. But am totally lost as to where to go and how to go about downloading songs to the devices. Is there one site that is better than another?

Any help on this would be great!

Happy Holidays!

2

I prefer just to rip my own CD’s to MP3 files using Easy CD-DA extractor. Windows Media Player can also rip songs but be sure choose the “do not protect” option.

I see Crutchfield has a 50 free downloads from eMusic. But be sure to terminate before they start charging the $15/month.

The above methods give DRM free MP3 (or WMA) files you can just drop into your Clip’s Music folder while connected in the MSC mode.

Message Edited by firefly on 12-25-2007 01:29 PM

3

Oky I may sound totally stupid but how do I do this? Pleae step by step

4

If you want to make MP3 files from your music CDs do this:

  1. Download and install Easy CD-DA Extractor.
  2. Play with it.
        a. Will it show your CD tracks?
        b. Can you download the CD info from freedb.org?
        c. Can you select MP3 encoding at “Near CD Quality”?
        d. Can you select all the tracks and convert them?
  3. Make a few mistakes, it’s harmless.

Read the other postings about the latest firmware download and connecting the Clip to your computer in the MSC mode.

5

where do I get the extractor thing?

6

jmdm–

2 principal ways to get music onto your player:

1,  Take computer music files you already have and move them to your player.  The easiest way:  open the folder on your computer in which the music files are located; connect your Clip to your computer and open the Sansa Clip folder and then the Music subfolder; and then simply “drag and drop” your music folders or individual tunes (or copies of them, holding down the Ctrl key as you drag and drop) from your computer folder to your player Music folder.   

2.  “Rip” music from audio CDs you own into computer music files and then follow the above.  You can buy music rippers at stores that sell software, the largest manufacturers being Roxio and Nero.  But you can get free rippers on the Internet as well (do a search engine search for music rippers).  If you’re on Windows, the Windows Media Player that likely came with your computer will rip for you as well.  But you want to take a few minutes to read up on this, to set the various options–what type of computer files to create (e.g. MP3 (the most universal); WMA (Microsoft); WAV); what “quality” of rip to make (the better the quality, the greater the size of the file); etc.  Also, when you rip music, you want to make sure that the “tags” are filled in:  album, artist, year, genre, and song title information that gets appended to your music files .  The player uses these to catalog the music so that you can choose it.  Many rippers access a public database of this information via the Internet, almost automatically, to fill that information in–this saves time typing the information in.  (Note that you need to make sure that the tag information also is present for music files you already own and are dragging onto your Clip, under no. 1 above–if it is not, you should add it through a file tag program or through Windows (right click on the file, properties, MP3 information).)

Sorry to make this more complex than you would like.  It’s actualy simple, once you set the process up and do it a few times. 

Here are some sources for ripping information:

http://www.cnet.com/4520-7899_1-6329586-1.html

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/windowsmediaplayer/default.mspx

I hope this helps.

7

And yet another guide to ripping music using WMP, from directly above.

http://forums.sandisk.com/sansa/board/message?board.id=clip&thread.id=903

For purchasing music files, there are many sources.  Amazon.com recently joined the fray, with competitive/good prices.