Using Clip without WM 10, with itunes (convert to mp3 and drag/drop)

I am considering a Clip for my daughter.  I currently have a PC with itunes and an Ipod and all my songs are in .aac.  I know I’ll have to convert those songs to .mp3 for the Clip, and I cannot run WM10 with itunes to I will be using Explorer to drag/drop .mp3 files to the Clip.  Some questions I still have though:

1.  When I convert from .aac to .mp3 with itunes, will I need to re-tag the song ID’s for the Clip?  If so, do I need a program like MP3Tag or Godfather to do it?

2.  If I drag/drop with Explorer, can you still browse the songs on the clip by artist/album, or are all the songs lumped onto the player because I didn’t use WM10 top create playlists?

3.  Are there any other music management programs that can be used to convert/tag/load/create playlists to the Clip such as Musicmatch Jukebox or Roxio?

Thanks for your help!

The main thing that you will need is music in mp3 format with correct ID3 v2.3 tags.  You can try a quick experiment: try generating an mp3 file with iTunes and then have a closer look at the mp3 file with MP3Tag.

MP3Tag is free, and it allows you to look into the gnarly details, including the album art, with ease.

Organizing files is easy with applications like Media Monkey (there are plenty of others too), and this particular application builds playlists easily.

Don’t worry about the music files getting “cluttered”, since this is the inherent beauty of ID3 tags: the Sansa thrives on the ID3 tags, and will automatically regroup your music by artist, genre, album, etc. 

Bob  :smileyvery-happy: 

@neutron_bob wrote:

Don’t worry about the music files getting “cluttered”, since this is the inherent beauty of ID3 tags: the Sansa thrives on the ID3 tags, and will automatically regroup your music by artist, genre, album, etc. 

 

Oh yeah? :stuck_out_tongue:

Hey, after learning WiMP, I have seen what clutter is all about!!  :stuck_out_tongue:

The clutter is on the PC side; the Sansa Monsta is very neat indeed, as long as everything transfers correctly.

If iTunes is anything like what Microsoft attempted in Windows Media Player in terms of “this is the way we made it, so deal with it!”, switching to the Sansa is a breath of fresh air.

Bob  :smileyvery-happy:

I installed Media Monkey and it does a very nice job.  I first converted the songs I wanted to load to the Clip from aac to mp3 using itunes, then I copied the mp3 files from itunes into another folder and deleted them from itunes.  All the original aac files were properly tagged with itunes.

I loaded the folder with the mp3’s into Media Monkey, and the tags were perfectly transferred.  I didn’t need a tagging program to fix them.  Then I drag/dropped the files onto the Clip (connected in MSC mode as that is the only way I could get it to work), and the tags all display perfectly on the Clip.  I can scroll by artist, album, or song just like I’d hoped.

I could not figure out how to drag/drop a playlist to the Clip with Media Monkey, so I right clicked on the Clip in the Media Monkey and selected “create new .m3u playlist” and created the playlist right on the Clip and then drag/dropped the songs in the Clip into the playlist.

Seems to be working exactly as I’d hoped…after a headache getting the Clip recognized…so far so good.

Thanks for all your help so far! 

Converting from a lossy format to another lossy format implies a singificant drop in audio quality. Unless you’re willing to get mp3 versions(not from converting the AACs) of your music then I suggest not buying a Sandisk player and choose one that actually supports AAC.

EDIT: ah, too late, I see. 

Message Edited by Lucky_Luciano on 06-07-2008 05:05 PM

My 5 year old daughter who I bought the clip for can’t really tell the difference, and more importantly doesn’t really care yet.  When she’s old enough for an Ipod then she’ll probably be old enough to care, then she’ll get the aac formatted songs.

Not to bag on the Clip anymore than I need to, but the earbuds that come with it aren’t really good enough to pick up any measureable quality loss anyway. 

I have never used the earbuds or headphones that come with players, and wish the manfs. would save on that expense.