Playlists loaded fine, used mp3gain & now I have problems, help!

SanDisk MP3 players Sansa® Clip | Sansa® Clip+
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Hi all,

I just got my Sansa clip, and I’ve tried to scan the forum for info on this & did some reading & downloaded mp3tag, but I’m pretty confused here, and would really appreciate a bit of help–

I downloaded playlists from Windows Media Player & they worked fine (file extensions of .mp3 and .wma). But, the volumes were at different levels, so I downloaded mp3gain and levelled the volumes of the songs, no problem. I wanted to clear  the old playlists so there would be no confusion, went to "my computer>sansa clip>open>memory>playlists and deleted the old playlists.

Then I put all the volume levelled songs in a folder on my desktop, rebuilt the playlists in windows media player, they worked fine there, and then re synced them to the clip. The titles showed fine in playlists, but of 4 playlists consisting of 6 or more songs in each, only 2 songs were in 2 of the playlists, and the others had most songs  but not all.

I tried reloading several times, no luck, and windows media player kept telling me that the clip had those files already. The missing files aren’t file protected, and played fine the first time.

I tried deleting all the music files out of the clip to clear it and start from scratch, but that’s when I have windows media player telling me it already synced those files.

I tried loading all the volume levelled files in the folder on my desktop into the clip as music & not playlists, and some showed up in the clip but not all. . .

If anyone can help me with this, I would be a happy gal!

Thanks.

*edited to say, I worked on the problem again today, and realized that while the song titles appear on the Clip, there is 0 memory there, and the Clip looks as though it’s playing a song, but there’s no sound.

Message Edited by homegardener on 08-18-2008 06:09 AM

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It seems like you delete the songs but somehow did not delete the headers so Clip is still reference to that and try to play but since your files is 0MB, it can’t play.  Best way is to delete the whole folder, not just the playlist.

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I FIGURED IT OUT :slight_smile:

I got a good tech support guy on the phone & he helped me out–in case anyone else needs to know, here’s the deal.

the Clip can only hold something like 6 playlists, so don’t try to load more than that. And, mp3Gain doesn’t read .wma files (at least I don’t think it does), so I went with all .mp3 files (got em from Amazon, no digital rights stuff).

I volume levelled the .mp3 files with mp3Gain (easy, free software)–then created my playlists in Windows Media Player–the tech guy said I need to load & delete playlists in the Clip with Windows Media Player, that was part of my problem. I was messing around in Explorer & trying to create playlists there, but was only partly successful.

But, using the owner’s manual instructions for syncing playlists in Windows Media Player, it worked.

Voila! Volume levelled songs, no surprises, worked fine. We use the playlists as break music for a band through a p.a., so the volume level thing is pretty important.

Thanks for the response kmc2005!

One last helpful hint–I set it up so the Clip wouldn’t sync automatically when it was connected. I looked it up under help in Windows Media Player, I’d paste it in here, but there’s probably a copyright issue. . .It’s under sync and advanced options, you just uncheck a box. 

Message Edited by homegardener on 08-21-2008 10:16 AM

Message Edited by homegardener on 08-21-2008 10:23 AM

Message Edited by homegardener on 08-21-2008 12:46 PM

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homegardener wrote: 

the Clip can only hold something like 6 playlists, so don’t try to load more than that.

If this is true, it must be a limitation of MTP mode.  I only use MSC mode and there doesn’t seem to be any limit to the number of m3u playlists you can have.

homegardener wrote: 

And, mp3Gain doesn’t read .wma files (at least I don’t think it does), so I went with all .mp3 files (got em from Amazon, no digital rights stuff).

Correct.  MP3Gain only does MP3.  Actually, there is experimental support for AAC, but that’s it.  Good choice dumping WMA.

If you don’t have any DRM files, you might want to consider MSC mode instead.  It’s much simpler and you have a much wider choice of tools you can use.  For example, MSC mode with Winamp or MediaMonkey is a killer combination.  However, if you really like WMP you should probably stick with MTP.

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If you don’t have any DRM files, you might want to consider MSC mode instead.  It’s much simpler and you have a much wider choice of tools you can use.  For example, MSC mode with Winamp or MediaMonkey is a killer combination.  However, if you really like WMP you should probably stick with MTP.

I’m intrigued by your reply, but I’m also a bit of a techno-moron, so please forgive me if the questions I’m about to ask qualify as “dumb questions”.

1)  Can anyone point me to a good, clear explanation of DRM and exactly what it is and how it works, that is written in a language a techno-moron can understand?

2)  What are the differences between MTP and MSC and why would I choose one over the other?

3)  Is it possible to create playlists without using WMP?

Thanks in advance for your replies.  I can’t remember how I ever learned anything before the interwebs!

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Hi OntheCouch,

I’m not the best choice to respond but I’ll start the dialogue and maybe a more technical person will chime in.

Re: loading playlists without WMP:

The one good phone support guy I got said that I needed to stay with Windows Media Player, both to add playlists & delete them. He said he only could get like, 7 playlists on *his* device. It sounds like other posters here have successfully loaded playlists without WMP, but my attempts were not successful.

Here’s link to a thread here, maybe it’ll help:

loading playlists without WMP

I am also intrigued by the MTP/MSC issue & using other programs to manipulate .mp3s.  Hopefully we’ll learn more!

As far as DRM, here’s a link for wikipedia about it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management

When you purchase a song from a company like Rhapsody or other similar companies, sometimes songs have limitations as to how you can use them. Sometimes you can only burn them to cd a certain number or times.  If I’m correct about getting .mp3’s from Amazon.com,  once you buy the .mp3, you can do whatever you want with it.   (Staying within copyright laws of course). I think some other companies (maybe Napster?) are following suit, it’s much less of a hassle once you get the songs.

One way to check on your songs in this regard–I right click on a song in Windows Media Player, click on “properties”, then click on “Media Usage Rights”–it will tell you the status of that file as far as DRM–like, “this file is not protected”, or “you can burn this file XXX more times” etc.

Message Edited by homegardener on 08-23-2008 06:54 AM

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@onthecouch wrote:

If you don’t have any DRM files, you might want to consider MSC mode instead.  It’s much simpler and you have a much wider choice of tools you can use.  For example, MSC mode with Winamp or MediaMonkey is a killer combination.  However, if you really like WMP you should probably stick with MTP.

I’m intrigued by your reply, but I’m also a bit of a techno-moron, so please forgive me if the questions I’m about to ask qualify as “dumb questions”.

 

1)  Can anyone point me to a good, clear explanation of DRM and exactly what it is and how it works, that is written in a language a techno-moron can understand?

 

2)  What are the differences between MTP and MSC and why would I choose one over the other?

 

3)  Is it possible to create playlists without using WMP?

 

Thanks in advance for your replies.  I can’t remember how I ever learned anything before the interwebs!

  1. I think homegardener pretty much covered it.  Short version is that online music download services use DRM to copy protect the downloaded files, limiting how many copies you can have, what devices you can put the file on, etc.  If the downloaded files are in WMA format, they are almost certainly DRM protected.  Some newer services like Amazon use plain old MP3s, which don’t support DRM, so you have complete freedom to use the files however you want.

  2. MSC is the standard used by removable storage devices like external USB hard drives and flash drives.  In this mode the player just looks like another hard drive on your computer.  This gives you full freedom to manage the files on your player any way you want, with any tools you want.  MTP is Microsoft protocol developed specifically to support DRM on portable players.  In MTP mode the player is not mounted as a removable drive, so only applications that specifically support MTP protocol can manage files on the player.  This basically means you are stuck with WMP.  Other apps do support MTP, but are often buggy and tend to get broken every time MS releases a new version of WMP and changes the MTP protocol.

  3. It should be noted that playlist format differs depending on the connection mode.  MTP mode uses .pla style playlists, which are part of the propritary MTP protocol. So, if you are going to use MTP mode, WMP is your best bet to create playlists.  MSC mode use .m3u style playlists originally developed by Winamp.  If you use MSC mode, there are a multitude of apps to choose from, Winamp and Media Monkey being among the most popular.  Heck, you can even create them yourself in Notepad since m3u playlist files are just simple text files that list the files you want in the playlist.

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Wow, thanks guys, for all the great info.  With your help, I will be an expert in no time!