I’ve never owned an mp3 player before, so thanks for your patience if these are ■■■■■ questions I so appreciate any help offered.
I got a clip+ and have been trying to copy music from iTunes (on a MacBook) over to it. So far, I thought I copied over a three-album playlist, but what showed up was a few random songs not on that playlist at all–no idea how that happened! Is this a Mac compatibility issue? I do also have a pc netbook (but no music on it)–if need be, I could learn over on that instead.
At least it showed me that the sound quality is just wonderful. Hoping to listen to audiobooks also.
I’ll leave iTunes to others–I don’t use it (a non-iTunes/PC guy here).
Generally, in the easiest manifestation, all you need to do is drag and drop/copy and paste files from a computer to the Clip (just as if you were doing all of this on your computer, between folders), and voila! Note that for a Mac, the Clip’s USB mode (under its settings) needs to be set to MSC, in which case a computer simply sees the Clip as a USB drive.
Ah–maybe MSC mode is what I need to try. I tried drag & drop, no dice. Copy-paste is what got me the songs on there, but they’re not the ones I selected–too weird! I’ll try that other mode and see if it helps.
Be aware that if your songs from iTunes are .m4p (I think) which are DRM-crippled or .m4a they will not play on the Clip+. They will need to be converted to .mp3 format, a more universal codec.
Thanks for that tip. It’s been a while since I played with my iTunes and back then, everything was mp3. I checked just now, and it says they’re m4a format.
So, that may well be the problem! I’ll see if I can find a way to switch it out.
Another little tid-bit . . . although iTunes will convert the files from .m4a to .mp3, you have to realize that the .m4a files are already ‘lossy’, meaning all the music information is not there compared with say, a CD. By converting them to yet another ‘lossy’ format, your sound quality of those files is going to degrade considerably.
The new Clip Zip will play .aac files (the DRM-free variety); unfortunately, not so for the Clip+ or Clip. For the Clip+ and Clip, if your original iTunes files are in .aac format and you’d like to keep the sound as good as possible (which gets hurt by using iTunes to convert the songs into mp3 format, as noted above), and if you have the original music sources around (such as from your CDs), would be best to re-rip the songs into mp3 format (or one of the other formats your Clip will recognize–mp3 format is the most universal). Note that you don’t need to use Windows Media Player to transfer the music to the Clips–simple drag and drop/copy and paste works just fine (and without WMP’s complications!). Also, a last thought: if you’d like to be able to use the iTunes .aac files without any complication and if your Clip + is new and still can be returned, you could return it and get a Clip Zip instead–as noted above, it will play .aac files as is (although note, the files have to be DRM protection free–iTunes’ current standard as versus what it had up to about 2 years ago).
Thanks for those suggestions. I bought the clip+ new: it arrived a couple weeks ago but I’ve been busy and it’s a whole new thing, so don’t know if I can still return it.
One more question: part of why I bought it was because I thought that it could act as a zip drive to transfer files from one computer to another. I just tried to use it as such and it wouldn’t let me save a small .doc file onto it. Anyone know why that might be–why shouldn’t I be able to do that? That was an important part of why I got the thing…
The Clip+ will act as a flash memory drive. if you copy a file to it in a format that the player doesn’t support, it won’t show up on the player itself, but will show up in the player when the player is connected to a pc.
What happened when you tried to copy a .DOC file to the Clip+? How did you try to copy it? I think you need to use a program like Copymac or something that just copies the file without the index files. The Clip+ seems to at times choke on those.
It should work fine as a thumbdrive–I use mine for that all the time, when I’m at the library using the computer and discover I want to take something back home with me.
It could be a Mac issue, although I would think that the file still should transfer fine–a Mac just may add a superfluous file as well that you’ll need to clear away when you can (or using the Kopymac software to transfer the file will prevent the extra file creation to begin with).
As to a possible return, you often gets 30 days for that–something to think about, with the Clip Zip just having come out . . . .
It may be something related to your Mac. I just transferred not only several Word (.doc) files, but also some Excel (.xls) files to both my Clip+ and the memory card inserted in the slot. This was done on a Windows PC.
They all transferred in the blink of an eye without any error msgs. or hiccups and opened in their respective programs (Word and Excel) from the player and card perfectly (although a little slower than the ones on my hard drive).
People who own or use Apple products all seem to think they are the greatest thing since toilet tissue on a roll . . . until they try to go out of the Apple crate and use them in the real world or in conjunction with anything non-pod. Then the company’s isolated and proprietary mentality and philosophy becomes glaringly apparent and limiting.
One more question: part of why I bought it was because I thought that it could act as a zip drive to transfer files from one computer to another. I just tried to use it as such and it wouldn’t let me save a small .doc file onto it. Anyone know why that might be–why shouldn’t I be able to do that? That was an important part of why I got the thing…
It’s probably something related to your Mac (or the way you have to transfer files from it. Did you ‘empty the Trash’ after transferring?). I just transferred not only several Word (.doc) files, but also some Excel (.xls) files to both my Clip+ and the memory card inserted in the slot. This was done on a Windows PC.
They all transferred in the blink of an eye without any error msgs. or hiccups and opened in their respective programs (Word and Excel) from the player and card perfectly (although a little slower than the ones on my hard drive).
People who own or use Apple products all seem to think they are the greatest thing since toilet tissue on a roll . . . until they try to go out of the Apple crate and use them in the real world or in conjunction with anything non-pod. Then the company’s isolated and proprietary mentality and philosophy becomes glaringly apparent and limiting.
Well here’s the funny thing: I _was_ using my PC netbook (a more recent purchase than my old mac, btw, so understand, I’m not entirely sold on macs by any stretch). I plugged in the Clip+ and from the open .doc file, clicked “save as” and selected the clip as the place where I wanted to save it. Received the error message: “You can’t save it here; try somewhere else!” I needed to email a file and occasionally (always when I need to do it urgently), my pc netbook _will not_ connect to the internet (we have dsl/broadband) but the macbook will. So, I needed to get the file onto the macbook so that I could email it timely, and couldn’t make the clip+ work, eventually used the external hard drive instead–cumbersome!
It’s very reassuring to hear that others have been able to use it for this. Maybe I need to try just click-and-drag the doc from one folder to the other. Or maybe the computer was still doing its thing recognizing the clip+ and wasn’t ready for the extra task.
But thanks, it definitely seems like having it talk to the netbook more would be the sensible course of action!
We only use Macs at work and I have a Mac at home and I have no problems copying and transferring files to and from my Clip+.
As long as you have the Clip+ set to MSC mode then you should be able to drag and drop without any restrictions. I do it all the time and it’s never stopped me copying what I like to any folder. I find it easier than using a PC.
The only extra thing I do is eject the Clip+ with “Hidden Cleaner” which is a free application which cleans up the hidden files, that PCs don’t like, as it ejects it. I find it better than “Kopymac”.
Jon, thanks for the word as to Hidden Cleaner–good to know (and I think that Kopymac may have been discontinued–the last time someone asked about it here, we found that was no longer available to be downloaded from Cnet"s Download site or from the developer)!
Would ‘hidden cleaner’ remove music that you didn’t put on the player? I ask, because I created a bunch of albums in mp3 format (on the macbook: my netbook doesn’t have a cd drive), and before copying them onto the clip+ I removed all the music on it.
But when I turned the clip+ on, those few random songs that were on there before (that I didn’t put there, knowingly at least) were still there. Looks like my chosen albums are there too, although I’m not always finding them easily and some of them seem to display in reverse order…
To keep the songs in the corect order, the track number tags need to be correct, and have a leading zero for the single digit numbers(ie. 01,02, 03, …10, 11). To edit tags easily, the free program mp3Tag is great. It is only for a pc though.
But when I turned the clip+ on, those few random songs that were on there before (that I didn’t put there, knowingly at least) were still there. Looks like my chosen albums are there too, although I’m not always finding them easily and some of them seem to display in reverse order…
“Hidden Cleaner” will only get rid of files that are normally invisible to the Mac but which show up on the Clip+ and on PCs. These files usually have a full point at the beginning of their file name and are used by the Mac for it’s file system. (If you type a full point in front of a file name on a Mac you can watch the file magically disappear).
Normally named files aren’t going to be effected by “Hidden Cleaner” so it’s not the answer to this problem.
If you are deleting files from the Clip+ using a Mac it’s very important to remember to empty the Waste basket before ejecting the Clip+ or the files are still there.
Problems with ID tags are common to PCs and Macs so aren’t specific to either operating system. Personally I strip the whole lot out and just use folders and file names which suits the way I listen to music. I use a programme called (I think, I’m not at home) ID3 on my Mac which is excellent and does all I need.
I so appreciate any help offered.