usb music

so i put i bunch of music on my usb stick today to try it in my Pro,,, stereo does not reconize it, put music in a separate fold and still nothing.. thanks for any help...

 

It should recognize most .MP3 songs but I've noticed it won't recognize all. Hit your Aux button until the USB is selected then the USB/Songs should show up. I use a USB stick dedicated to music only, less room for error.

 

I have a new 2015 limited jbl I had a 13 gb usb stick all the songs showed up on the usb stick did not show on the radio I broke it into smaller sticks and it works I think the system can only hold so many songs

 

formatted to fat32, put 3 gigs of songs on stick ,no folders,, works fine after formatting to fat32,,

 

Yup, has to be fat32.

 

Never heard of this format before...looks like it increases storage efficiency? I bought a usb drive for my alpine head unit a while back and only a handful of the songs actually show up. I figured it was just because not all of them are the same file type. After reading this I'm wondering if it will fix the problem. Is this specific to stock head units only or would formatting to fat32 do the trick?

 

What format are you using? NTFS? Most head units will not read NTFS. Fat32 is an old format scheme, you must be very young.

 

If you used NTFS and the head unit required Fat32, you wouldn't see anything- it's all or nothing. A lot of head units have limits on file names, bit rate... all kinds of stuff too.

 

EXFAT, curious if that would work.

 

You should be able to organize your songs with a single layer of folders by artist, music category, etc.

I tried to categorize my artists with a second level of folders; it still allowed me to play the MP3s, but the radio couldn't display mutiple folder levels only a single level.

 

I gave up on organizing by folder structure and use tags instead. I usually have 2 or 3 USB sticks going, one with new stuff, one with classic stuff, one with a certain artist, etc.

 

I use a 2-level folder structure (Artist, and then Album) on a 64GB USB stick. The radio finds all the files fine, and I can use the same files on a MP3 player.

The important part is the MP3 tags. It's what the radio uses to display the album info, not the file name.

Also, the radio only accepts up to 9999 files. And, it's best to have no other files (non-MP3) on the drive. Some sticks come with extra software, that I eliminate when re-formatting with FAT32.

 

Yes, the radio finds all of the files/mp3s to play, but it doesn't display the 2-level folder structure within the radio. Can you see a level of folders on your radio where you go into the first level and then see more folders to choose from?

I can't. When using a 2-level folder structure my radio just displays all the individual files and orders them by file name. With thousands of individual files on my memory stick, I prefer to organize and group everything by artist name. When I have a single level folder structure it displays the folders in alphabetical order by artist name on my radio, and then I can easily flip right to anything I want.

 

My Entune radio uses the MP3 tags to sort and display the songs. The folder structure is not used by the radio in this case.

My radio shows the artists first, and when I select an artist, a list of the albums associated with that artist is displayed. When an album is then selected, the list of songs on the album are displayed.

The key is getting the MP3 tags correct.

 

I see, my tags are probably all screwed up because they are ripped and the mp3 tags are blank. Having a single level of folders by artist name and then naming the mp3 files by the song name works pretty good if your MP3s don't have proper tags.

My non Entune touch screen stereo always displays the folder name which is the artist for me, as well as the file name which is the song name, that's about all I need to know.

I use to have a bunch of full albums/cds, but then figured out that half the songs on most albums I never listen to. So to save USB space; I started deleting individual songs I will never listen to and ripping individual songs that I want, now hardly any of my artists have complete albums anymore but nearly every song on my USB stick is a great song that I would potentially listen to.

 

Waiiiit a second. I can just plug a usb flash with music and it will work on the entune audio of my '14 ??? How the eff did I not know this. All those times driving through mountainous terrain with no XM radio

 

How did you record the music? Or was it from an MP3 to begin with?

 

For songs I purchase on the internet, they already come as MP3.

For CDs, I use a CD ripper, which transforms the songs into MP3. It also connects to Gracenote/Freedb, and grabs the MP3 tag info.

 

There may be a limit to the size USB stick the radio can read from. I have a friend who has a different vehicle that can only read USB sticks 2 GB and smaller.

I have a whole bunch of free 128MB sticks that I can fit about 25 songs on. This makes it easy to have individual albums or collections instead of having to search through many folders.

 

i have a 4 gig stick im using, put about 3 gigs of songs on it, gave up xm radio, they just called and offered 6 months for 19.95. i said no thanks, got all the music i need for free,, my buddy did not know he could play usb music in his chevy he thought they were just for charging cell phones..