How do I make a flash drive?

[daniel]

It's a nuisance to me to use my phone for music in the car, because then every time I leave the car the Music app is in the foreground of the phone. And sometimes the phone does not connect and there's no music. In the Roadster I plugged in an iPod Shuffle that worked perfectly with the Alpine infotainment system. But when I plug that same iPod Shuffle in to the USB of the Model 3, it recognizes a drive, but thinks it's empty.

I don't mind putting my music on a flash drive and using that instead, but how do I do that? Can I just drag music files from iTunes on the desktop computer onto a flash drive as if I were copying files? What about playlists?

Thanks for any help or advice.

I've had the car for just shy of two days and I love it.

 

[daniel]

I tried just copying some music files from iTunes to a flash drive. When I plugged it into the car, it recognized the drive, but thought it was empty. (Same as with the iPod.)

 

[JPP]

Does this help:

https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/thr...ay-to-transfer-from-itunes.16711/#post-338619

And, yes, let the TMC search feature be your friend....

 

[SMAlset]

Thanks for asking this. We haven't gotten around to making a USB drive but last few trips down to Buellton area we would lose all audio signal a few times and we said we should have something prepared for future trips. This was a good reminder.

 

[daniel]

I did it!!!

For anyone with the same problem, here's what I did:

First I formatted the Flash Drive: Using Disc Utility on my iMac I selected the flash drive and then selected ERASE. At the prompt, I told it to use MS-FAT as the format. Other formats apparently don't work.

Then in iTunes (where all my music lives, though I never listen to it from there) I went to:

iTunes->Preferences->Import Settings; then selected Import Using MP3 Encoder. (Even though we're converting, not importing.)

Then in one of my playlists I selected all the songs, and then:

File->Convert->Create MP3 Version; and then OK.

This takes a few moments. When it's done, I went to Library->Songs and found the songs I had converted. Where there used to be one copy of each, in ACC format, now there are two of each, the first in ACC format and the second in MP3 format.

I carefully selected only the second copy of each song (all the MP3s) and then dragged those into my formatted flash drive. Then I dragged all those MP3s from iTunes into the trash because I don't want the extraneous copies. And then I repeated the whole process for a couple of other albums.

I plugged the drive into one of the USB ports in the Tesla Model 3, and when I selected USB in the music menu, it showed me my albums and was able to play the songs.

I don't know how to create playlists, but since my playlists are just whole albums, I don't need playlists. I can select them under the Album heading.

And now I have some of my music in the car. I was using an old flash drive that was just lying around, but I will probably get a bigger one so I can have more of my music.

Whoopee!!!

Thanks to JPP for your help!

 

[SpiceWare]

I carefully selected only the second copy of each song

If you right-click on the column titles you can add Kind to what's displayed. Then click on the Kind column and all the MP3 files will be sorted together. After that you can click the first MP3, then shift-click the last MP3 to select them all.

 

[daniel]

If you right-click on the column titles you can add Kind to what's displayed. Then click on the Kind column and all the MP3 files will be sorted together. After that you can click the first MP3, then shift-click the last MP3 to select them all.

View attachment 284011 View attachment 284012

Thanks for that information! That will really be useful since I only did three albums for the experiment, and once I get a bigger flash drive I'll be doing a bunch more.

 

[daniel]

So my flash drive works fine for music. But every time I start the car, it connects first to my phone. It does not remember that I want to listen to music via the USB. I have to open the music control, then select USB, then select Albums, then select the album, and then select the track. It does not remember to start with the USB, and it does not remember where I was in the album. This is annoying.

 

[daniel]

If you right-click on the column titles you can add Kind to what's displayed. Then click on the Kind column and all the MP3 files will be sorted together. After that you can click the first MP3, then shift-click the last MP3 to select them all.

View attachment 284011 View attachment 284012

Thanks again. Your suggestion worked like a charm! I picked up a bigger jump drive yesterday and this morning I converted a bunch of music and put it on the new drive. Sooooo much easier than the way I was doing it the first time.

I also put each album in its own folder so that multi-disc albums stay together instead of being listed as separate albums.

And to repeat, the sound system in this car is really spectacular, at least to my 69-year-old ears.

 

[SpiceWare]

Great!

Back in 2015 I decided to re-rip my all of music as Apple Lossless as storage was no longer an issue like it was when I started ripping into iTunes in 2003 (at 128 kbps AAC). It took a while, but the improvement in sound quality was worth it. I did favorite groups like The Cars first, so later on I sorting by Kind to see which CDs I still needed to do.

Tesla doesn't support Apple Lossless so I'll be doing something similar to what you're doing once I get my Model 3. Tesla does support another lossless encoding, FLAC, and it's possible to convert between the two without any loss in fidelity so that's what I plan to use. Apple doesn't have built in support for FLAC, though I recall seeing an AppleScript posted here that would help...


Found it - Easy iTunes playlist syncing for Tesla USB flash drive

 

[S3XY]

Which USB port are you all plugging your flash drives into?

 

[daniel]

Which USB port are you all plugging your flash drives into?

Between the front seats of the Model 3 is a console. Forward of the cup holders there are two flaps that open into a storage space. The rearward flap opens toward the back, and the forward flap opens toward the front. Inside that space, on its forward wall, there are two USB slots. I don't think it matters which of those you plug into. (It's dark in there and the slots are not immediately obvious even with the light inside the storage space. I used my phone's flashlight app to see in there.)

 

[S3XY]

Between the front seats of the Model 3 is a console. Forward of the cup holders there are two flaps that open into a storage space. The rearward flap opens toward the back, and the forward flap opens toward the front. Inside that space, on its forward wall, there are two USB slots. I don't think it matters which of those you plug into. (It's dark in there and the slots are not immediately obvious even with the light inside the storage space. I used my phone's flashlight app to see in there.)

So you're using one of the ports intended for the phones up front.

 

[daniel]

So you're using one of the ports intended for the phones up front.

No, I'm using one of the ports intended for a phone or a USB jump drive. I could still plug my phone into the other one if I wanted to.

 

[TheLocNar]

Any flash drive recommendations? Seems like some of the SanDisk ones have bad heat issues that I'd obviously like to avoid.

Daniel, how's the setup been working out for you? I know I'll have to go through a bunch of my self and properly name/tag lots of songs. Not really looking forward to that. lol

 

[daniel]

I followed the advice offered above, and had no trouble transferring my music to the flash drive. (Don't remember the brand. Picked it up at OfficeMax.) I put each album or set of albums into a separate named folder. My music is all Baroque, so not "songs" but pieces of several movements each.

When I select USB on the screen I can then choose "Albums" or "Folders" (or a few other choices). If I select an album it plays fine. If I select a folder, it re-arranges the movements alphabetically by name, which works for some but not for others. For example, for the Bach B Minor Mass it wants to play the Agnus Dei first! Arrrrggghhhh! Even though on the flash drive the movement (song) names are preceded by numerals that put them in order on the flash drive, the car ignores the numerals and arranges them alphabetically by the portion of the name following the numeral. Fortunately, if I select Album this does not happen.

When I shut off the car and then return to it, the car does not remember that I was listening to the USB. It wants to connect to the Music app on my phone instead! And when I manually go back to USB it does not remember where I was in an album. This is an annoyance, but otherwise it all works fine.

Everything is correctly named because the names transfer over unaltered from iTunes, which is where my music lives on the desktop computer.

Oh, one glitch: iTunes refused to convert a couple of my albums which I had bought from the iTunes store, even though it made no fuss about converting some other albums that I had also bought from the iTunes store. Fortunately, the ones it refused to convert were ones I can live without in the car.

Music quality is splendid.

 

[X Fan]

fyi...I used music tag editor to get FLAC files properly tagged. This Op details challenges with the Tesla solution.....important to read and understand

Comprehensive USB Bug List

 

[X Fan]

this page has latest update on how to prepare your USB disk: Comprehensive USB Bug List