Making folders in Clip

Sorry if this was already posted, theres a lot of messages to search through and wording for question could vary…

My girlfriend just got a Clip and I am setting it up for her.   I copy music folders from my computer onto the clip’s music folder.  When I view it through my PC, I see Sansa’s MUSIC FOLDER with all the sub folders (80s music, Pink Floyd etc…) listed out.  But when I go into the Clip itself, theres no folders.  I can only browse all music, or by genre artist etc.   This doesnt work well as songs come from various sources, the genre, and artist names are spelled with variations.  So everything is all spread out and sporatic on the Clip.

On my own MP3 player, i can scroll down and access actual folders I made to pick songs I want.     Is there anyway to do this on the clip?

thanks

brad

Please do a search on Folders in the Clip section.  Not possible at this time.  Maybe never. 

Can we at least get support for disc number tags?

Your Clip doesn’t read a file “hierarchy” like your computer (and some other mp3 players). It gets all it’s information on the song tracks from ID3tags embedded in the song file itself. If you think about it though, it’s kinda the same . . . on your computer, you have folders of ARTISTS. Inside these folder, are other folders of ALBUMS. Inside these folders, you have TRACK/SONG files (the .mp3’s themselves).

Now consider your player . . . you scroll to ARTIST, it gives you all the ALBUMS by that artist. Select an ALBUM, & it shows you all the TRACKS/SONGS in that album. The GENRE listing is nice if you want to say, listen to only Rock or Jazz or whatever style of music you’re in the mood for at the moment. But as far as finding the songs on the player, it’s more similar than you think at first glance.

It’s a little weird at first because like you said, you transferred files from one folder to another, and your Clip shows this file/folder system in Windows Explorer. But it doesn’t show it this way on the Clip screen itself. That’s when the Sansa brain takes over and interpretes the data in the ID3tags and displays that in it’s menu system.

Do a search on this or any forum for ID3tags, and you’ll find a plethora of discussion and information on the subject. Sansa players are very, very picky eaters when it comes to reading ID3tags, so you might as well arm yourself with all the ammunition you can in making sure your song info is as accurate as you can make it. Then you shouldn’t have any problem finding any song on your player. A good, free program for viewing & editing the tags is MP3Tag. You can get it here. Also, read as much as you can on the subject here on this board and also on the e200 series board. There are “mass quantities” of information, tips & tricks!

Good Luck! It ain’t as hard as it seems :smiley: .

@tapeworm wrote:

 

Now consider your player . . . you scroll to ARTIST, it gives you all the ALBUMS by that artist. Select an ALBUM, & it shows you all the TRACKS/SONGS in that album.

You are wrong. It will show you the ALBUMS that have ANY song by that ARTIST. Select an ALBUM, and it will show you ONLY the SONGS which are from the ARTIST you selected.

For ‘normal’ albums, where all the songs are by the same artist it’s exactly the same and the procedure you described will be transparent. But when it comes to compilation albums it’s really annoying. Besides the fact that you will have different selection methods depending on what type of album you want to listen (I agree, both can be selected by going directly to ALBUMS instead of ARTIST, but in a 4Gb clip you can have many, many albums and one wishes to have USEFUL filters), you will have a pletora of artists that each contribute with one song. Most of it could be avoided if there was a consistent use of the ALBUM ARTIST tag (like Windows Media Player or Winamp).

Another issue is when you want to select by GENRE. If I have a compilation ALBUM of Soul songs, and I try to find it by GENRE–>Soul, the Clip gives me a list of ARTISTS, not albums! Of course, I have other soul albums (and artists) than the one that I want to listen so I don’t want to select the whole genre. I have to go back, to the ALBUM list, and find what I want.

And what if I want to make MY compilation? I’m forced to either: a) make a playlist or b) edit ID3 tags to make the songs appear as a different album (by far I prefer the first method, because I can have a song appearing in several compilation without duplicating the file).

So, you have to be aware of these little ‘bugs’ (so to speak) when doing the transition from folders to tags. I had a player that mainly navigated by folder and I missed many things that now I do with tags in the Clip. But there are some things (I admit they are few) that I did with folders and now I can’t do with tags.

I think that I wouldn’t miss any if the clip had

a) The possibility of navigation/filtering by ALBUM ARTIST in addition to ARTIST

and b) the possibility of selection by ARTIST or ALBUM after selecting a GENRE.

Can you hear me, Sansa people? This may be easier than implementing folder navigation :wink:

porio wrote:

 

For ‘normal’ albums, where all the songs are by the same artist it’s exactly the same and the procedure you described will be transparent. But when it comes to compilation albums it’s really annoying.

Guess I’m just one of those ‘normal’ guys who don’t have any of those “annoying” compilation albums. :smileyvery-happy:

 

I can understand someone who has a lot of these compilation albums wanting a “folder” interface, and yes, there are some other mp3 players that offer this. If you had say, a Sansa e200v1 player for example, you could put Rockbox on it and get that interface.

 

But, unfortunately Rockbox hasn’t been written for the Clip (or the FUZE, or the e200 series v2 units, or many other brands of players) so the fact remains that if someone (like the OP) is going to own and/or use the Clip, they need to learn & understand how it works, so that they can get the most benefit from it and have the fewest problems. And so, familiarizing yourself with ID3tags and how to edit and/or manipulate them is, shall we say, a ‘prudent’ thing to do.

I’ve always just used folders or “Albums” of various artists, like the legendary mixtapes of ancient lore.  I organize them into eighty minute albums, usually around 20 or 21 songs apiece, although my TV themes folders have seventy and eighty-three tracks because of their smaller size and shorter time.  The only real albums I put on my Clip were ripped directly from their respective CDs (long ago) and when I ripped them, I labeled each file as 01. “Song Title”, 02. “Song Title,” etc.  Under the MP3’s Properties, I just kept the Title the same but without the numbering.  My Clip recognized this just fine and all of my tracks are playing in order.  I also used MP3Tag to organize everything before I got my Clip, and haven’t had any problems.

  

 

Yes, folders would be easier.  I used folders on my RCA Lyras, and good Lord, it was extremely easy.  But, my Clip is so much better than those Lyras, and I’m enjoying every minute of having and listening to it, as evidenced by my incessant prattling on and constant purchases of accessories for it.

 

 

Brad

Message Edited by HulkSmashNow on 07-23-2008 07:28 PM

For compilation albums, it’s probably easiest to make playlists for them.  At least for the way the Clip is now.

Hi.  I just got a new clip.  I am using a Mac and I don’t use playlists at all–but I would like to use folders.  At first it seems you can’t with a clip, but then I realized the clip has a whole bunch of folders–audiobooks, podcasts, audible–already set up.  I put some mp3 files in them and they work.  Anyone know if I am using a nifty way to grab a few folders to organize my stuff–or am I setting myself up for crash disaster?  Thanks.

DISCNUMBER tag will be supported in the next release

@sansafix wrote:
DISCNUMBER tag will be supported in the next release

Any word on Album Artist, or some other way to handle compilations? 

@beng wrote:


@sansafix wrote:
DISCNUMBER tag will be supported in the next release


Any word on Album Artist, or some other way to handle compilations? 

 

Album Artist support would be extremely helpful.   Comps would be the main use, but it would also be great for tributes and classical.  I hope it’s considered for a future FW.

I think the Discnumber fix is not confirmed for the next release unfortunatley,  we will get it fixed after that.

@sansafix wrote:
I think the Discnumber fix is not confirmed for the next release unfortunatley,  we will get it fixed after that.

So there are thoughts of a future firmware after the one upcoming?

Then PLEASE consider the Album Artist tag support. It’s unconceivable that a device intended to work out of the box with Windows Media Player doesn’t use this sorting criteria that WMP uses by default. This fact created my very first confusion on how to deal with tags. And it also introduces annoying side effects when one lets WMP to retrieve album information from the internet.