I really like the Shaker for its external speaker, especially when I’m working around the yard or house and don’t want to have external sounds muffled with earphones stuffed in my ears.
It does appear to have a problem:
Occasionally, with no action on my part, it will suddenly jump out of the current track and begin playing at the beginning of the previous track. I have two players and they both do this.
What causes this? Is there a way to prevent it?
I dont know if its true, but i read on a different forum about the shaker, that it may skip backwards or fowardwards depending on if the song has too much bass in it… But that was just somebodys personal findings. Is that accurate with what you are experiencing? If so it would be nice to know about it.
It doesn’t seem to be related to the tone or any other specific characteristic of the track. It seems to be random. If it skips and I return to the same track, it doesn’t skip again at the same spot. Right now I’m testing a hunch that it may happen mostly when the battery level is down, but I haven’t confirmed that.
@mp3inmansfield wrote:
It doesn’t seem to be related to the tone or any other specific characteristic of the track. It seems to be random. If it skips and I return to the same track, it doesn’t skip again at the same spot. Right now I’m testing a hunch that it may happen mostly when the battery level is down, but I haven’t confirmed that.
One thing you want to take into consideration is that this device is going to be SanDisk’s entry level MP3 player. The device doesn’t have a screen and it might not be able to play the same songs as a higher level MP3 player. Check to see if the songs on your device are using a ‘Varible Bit Rate’ opposed to a set bit rate. I already know that the little MP3 player doesn’t support WMA files so check to see if the current bitrate is high on your songs. If you find yourself in either situation, try changing or lowering your bit rate and see if that makes a difference.
My 0.02
The good: Shaker is a great concept, inexpensive, simple, expandable, & it works… I like it a lot.
The bad: The audio output is very bass heavy & shy on the treble, great for headphones. Not so great for FM modulators & listening in the car.
By the time I turn the Shakers output down low enough to prevent clipping/distortion it is very quiet & even then I have to adjust the bass & treble on my stereo…
With out a Firmware update or some type of adjustment it is usless to me…
Message Edited by GLwagon on 08-17-2007 03:03 PM
I too have the issue with songs skipping. It is not due to the song as far as I can tell, because sometimes it plays the song with no problem, sometimes it skips it. Also, we bought two of these shakers and both have the same issue.
I just hung up with a fellow at Sansa Techincal Support. He was very courteous and said the Shaker is very sensitive to the speaker, so if the volume is turned up, the speaker can trip the changing of the track. I asked if there was any way to update the microcode to bypass the shaker feature. He said at this point there was not, but he would let his supervisor know. He suggested I enter a suggestion in the forum. That’s when I found this post. I think this is one of those “it seemed like a good idea at the time” kind of thought, but the implementation needs a little work. Other than this “twist”, my son is delighted to have his own MP3 player. I just hope Sansa can help with the problem.
I’d like to know how to get the songs to the mp3 player. I’ve tried my windows media player, limewire, and rhapsody. But everytime I turn the shaker on it just gives me an uh oh. This is very fustrating. I’m about to just go get my money back.
The “uh-oh” indicates that the SD card is missing (or possibly faulty), or the battery is low. I would try replacing the battery, and/or starting it with another card. Loading songs is very easy because once you connect the cable, your computer will treat the Shaker exactly like any disk drive.
Message Edited by MP3inMansfield on 09-10-2007 06:19 PM
Response to jdhkoh:
Interesting response you got from the SanDisk tech, but I’m skeptical of this answer. I’ve watched this “skipping” behavior very carefully on two different shakers, and observed the following:
– The skipping almost never happens when the battery is fresh. My VOM Meter shows that the battery has usually dropped to about 1.25 V when this behavior occurs.
– The skipping is not the normal random skipping that occurs when you shake the Shaker. It almost always jumps back to the beginning of the track just before the one currently being played.
Given the prevalence of this behavior, can we please have an authoritative answer from SanDisk?
Message Edited by MP3inMansfield on 09-10-2007 05:58 PM
Message Edited by MP3inMansfield on 09-10-2007 05:58 PM
There was in fact a small number of shakers that did have an issue with bass. The issue is pretty random but it can be reproduced. A low battery, as your results show, will increase the skipping of songs. If the player gets replaced you will more then likely not run into the issue again.
There was in fact a small number of shakers that did have an issue with bass. The issue is pretty random but it can be reproduced. A low battery, as your results show, will increase the skipping of songs. If the player gets replaced you will more then likely not run into the issue again.
does the shaker really not supported downloaded material from sites lik limewire?
hav u tried copying them from a folder instead of directly from ur limewire application?
please respond cuz i was just about to go buy one but all my songs r downloaded from limewire so i definetly need to kno this.
thx
The shaker only supports non licensed .mp3’s. it doesn’t matter where they come from as long as they are not protected and are in mp3 format.
that being said file sharing applications are illegal and if it does not work there probably is not much support.
Actually, the single “uh oh” means low battery, the double “uh oh” means the disk is blank which most likely means the files were not converted to mp3 or WAV format. (I had the same challange initially.) My Windows Media Player is version 10. I inserted my card into a card reader,selected the drop down arrow under the Rip and Sync functions and selected mp3 for both. Then I put in the cd I wanted to save to my daughters Shaker. I deleted the exhisting albums in my library and re-ripped them in mp3 format then synced them to the memory card. No worries now!
Were you able to correct your problem??? I’m going nuts here!!!
Okay, so I have the same issue. Our Sansa Shaker (pink, 512mb) will skip mid-song to another song when using the built-in speaker. The unit also sometimes plays songs at half-speed (slow-motion sounding). I spoke with technical support and they narrowly-defined the issue to this:
Tech support summary:
The Sansa Shaker may skip if the song your playing has a heavy bass signal. Any song with heavy bass that is played through the built-in speaker may create excessive vibration, that causes the player to skip. The Tech Support agent says the vibrations cause the memory card to skip. A low battery will increase the likelihood of skipping.
The official workaround is to reduce the bass signal on all your affected mp3 files. Use a third party program with a multi-band equalizer (not provided by Sansa) to reduce the bass signal, then re-encode or save the newly modified mp3, and transfer the modified files back into your Shaker. Or simply listen with headphones, to disable the built-in speaker, and the unit will not skip.
There is no upgradeable firmware on the Sansa Shaker, so no software workaround is available, and there is no offer to replace/exchange the unit because support says the unit is not defective. The unit is designed for children, so excessive bass is not advisable.
Testing the Sansa Response:
I tested this response by reformatting my SD card. Then I uploaded two versions of a song that repeatedly skipped; the original, and a modified version that had all bass signals below 225hz reduced to (-) infinity using a 20 band graphic EQ filter in Sound Forge.
The original continued to skip mid-song, and since there were only two songs on the card, it would skip to the modified version with a reduced bass signal. The modified version played all the way through. When playing both songs through headphones (disabling the built-in speaker), both songs played in their entirety, w/o skipping.
My summary:
I DO believe tech support defined the issue correctly. I DON"T believe this was an intended child-safety feature. This was a unforseeable flaw in the products design. If a childs hearing were at issue, then they wouldn’t allow the song to play in the headphones either, right? A loud song played at high volume in headphones will damage an ear just as effectively as an external speaker would. Its the decibel level that is damaging, not the type of speaker. This is just an excuse not to refund, or exchange.
Re-encoding your mp3 collection is impractical and time-consuming, not to mention difficult to someone who is not computer-saavy.
A simpler workaround for listening w/o headphones is to lower the volume when playing through the built-in speakers (reducing the vibration), or plugging the unit into computer desktop speakers (bypassing the built-in speaker). You can also place it on a soft cloth, wrap a loose rubberband around it, put a small thin piece of tissue in the battery compartment, or suspend it by a lanyard using the eyelet, to create a pseudo-vibration damper.
The unit playing at half-speed was never addressed.
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