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USB music - folder structure? "Embedded" cover art?
- Thread starter Pepar
- Start date
When playing music off of USB from folders, is it possible for the car to play onto the next folder after the last track in the current folder is played? Tesla seems to only play what's in the selected folder, but will not "walk" the folder tree. For a library that is organized by folders, it would be really nice to be able to get to the next folder by tapping "next". Any thoughts? Thanks.
PianoAl
Active Member
The music on the USB drive we use was organized by iTunes years ago--artists, albums, tunes. That works well.
One trick is to copy your favorites into one folder, for example, "Al Favorites." You can add or delete tunes occasionally.
I've used the USB for audiobooks in the past, but listening to those using Bluetooth from your phone is much better.
One trick is to copy your favorites into one folder, for example, "Al Favorites." You can add or delete tunes occasionally.
I've used the USB for audiobooks in the past, but listening to those using Bluetooth from your phone is much better.
Wishmaster
Member
My kingdom for a "shuffle" button.
My experience so far is that however you order your files they get played in alphabetical order, restarting from the beginning whenever the car hiccups. I've gotten as far as AL a couple of times now. Fun as it is to listen to all 15 versions of Alligator and then eight Althea's a little bit later, it's getting tiresome now.
No, re-naming 12,000 tracks for the convenience of the car just isn't happening.
My experience so far is that however you order your files they get played in alphabetical order, restarting from the beginning whenever the car hiccups. I've gotten as far as AL a couple of times now. Fun as it is to listen to all 15 versions of Alligator and then eight Althea's a little bit later, it's getting tiresome now.
No, re-naming 12,000 tracks for the convenience of the car just isn't happening.
TunaBug
Member
That would be fabulous-- any hint as to where to find it? I've looked through every folder and menu that I can find. I can be oblivious, so it may be perfectly obvious, I just cant see it (I'm apparently not alone in this, others have commented on its lack). A screen shot showing where to look for it would be a huge help. Thanks!
TunaBug
Member
USB music - shuffle vs. playing folder contents in oder has a picture of the icon. Unfortunately the stupid new card-based interface doesn't have it. Go into the full audio window, hide the audio card so that the controls appear in the big window, and the icon will be visible.
I just want an option for the player to move on to the next folder in the tree when the tracks are finished in the current folder.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I had no idea there was more useful information available if you expanded that window. Several good things hidden there, but my wish is answered! I’ll never know why it’s in the little tiny version of the controls and not the one that fills the whole big screen, but what the heck. I’m very happy I can actually do it.
Jumping in, hope this is appropriate here ... Things are working pretty well for me, converting the AIFF files in my iTunes library to Apple Lossless (aka. ALAC, losslessly-compressed in M4A files). Poking around, it looks like ALAC used to not work, but it's working fine for me now (brand new car !). iTunes appended sequential numbers to the tracks when I ripped my CDs, and I'm ok with that, so no need to do anything there.
Here's my problem. On many of my multi-artist compilations, the iTunes "Artist" tag for each song is set to the name of the artist (duh); these end up fragmented into separate albums, one album per track, in the Tesla player. Others of my compilations have the Artist tag set to "Various Artists" for all the tracks, and those are fine on the Tesla, but the per-track artist info has been lost. I thought I could fix the problem by setting the iTunes "Album Artist" to "Various Artists" (leaving the individual artist names in the Artist tag), but it doesn't work (still fragmented into albums).
Has anyone dealt with this issue before and found a solution ? There's one poor solution when I want to play a compilation, which is to go to "Folders" (on the Tesla player), and then "Compilations", where the compilation album will be one of the choices. Better might be to create new versions of each compilation album, with the artists for all the songs set to "Various Artists"; the per-song artists wouldn't be available there, but you can't see that on the Tesla player anyhow (unless you search for the artist) - but you'll still have it in your iTunes library.
Here's my problem. On many of my multi-artist compilations, the iTunes "Artist" tag for each song is set to the name of the artist (duh); these end up fragmented into separate albums, one album per track, in the Tesla player. Others of my compilations have the Artist tag set to "Various Artists" for all the tracks, and those are fine on the Tesla, but the per-track artist info has been lost. I thought I could fix the problem by setting the iTunes "Album Artist" to "Various Artists" (leaving the individual artist names in the Artist tag), but it doesn't work (still fragmented into albums).
Has anyone dealt with this issue before and found a solution ? There's one poor solution when I want to play a compilation, which is to go to "Folders" (on the Tesla player), and then "Compilations", where the compilation album will be one of the choices. Better might be to create new versions of each compilation album, with the artists for all the songs set to "Various Artists"; the per-song artists wouldn't be available there, but you can't see that on the Tesla player anyhow (unless you search for the artist) - but you'll still have it in your iTunes library.
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TunaBug
Member
There are certainly threads where tag handling is more thoroughly discussed, but I don't have the extra minutes to hunt them down for you. Quick answer for a specific issue you mentioned though : Tesla ignores album artist tags. Probably the grouping you want will be found by copying album artist to artist. And yes this implies having a separate copy of your music library with tags adulterated for the car.
That's what I'm coming to also. On these compilations, simply make copies of them (not in iTunes), then use a free tag editor (Tag Editor Lite on Mac looks good) to change the Artist tag on all the songs to VARIOUS. Then, in the car, I can find all my compilations by selecting VARIOUS under Artists or they all just show up under Albums. On my computer, keep this VARIOUS folder separate from my iTunes library, and just drop it in whenever I rebuild my USB.
TunaBug
Member
I just found the thread that I was going to point you to, but it's this one 
. @FalconFour on post #11 and my post #14 & 15.
. @FalconFour on post #11 and my post #14 & 15.So the proposed solution appears to be to copy AlbumArtist to Artist (so Artist is the same for all songs on the album) and incorporate the per-song artists into the track names. A simpler option might be to simply interchange Artist and Album Artist - I checked and the car behaves properly if Album Artist is different for various songs (of course you wouldn't be able to see the artist's name in the car at all). That might make it simpler to put things back the way they should be. Because one thing that worries me about all these schemes is that Tesla might get their act together eventually and interpret the tags properly. For example, it appears that previously the car could not handle ALAC (Apple Lossless) files; but now it does (at least my brand new Model Y does).
TunaBug
Member
The purpose of putting the artist name into the track name is that you might at least be able to see it during playback, assuming the track name is short enough to fit in the limited space on the display. I only do that on mixed artist albums though ("Various Artists" album or a Soundtrack) For a typical album, let's say album artist is Rolling Stones, I really dont care if in the car I lose whether a particular track was written by Jagger or Richards and having that jammed onto the track name would be irritating.
I'm not sure what you would get by putting artist into album artist. Although if this is your only copy of the music library then, yeah, that would be a place to stash the artist name for future use. Does ALAC let you use arbitrary tags? If so then perhaps make your own tag for stashing that instead of further corrupting known tags. Eg save it in "rusty.saved.artist.name"
Also, I should point out that I'm an old school album rock person. Browsing by albums is my primary scenario and what MUST work correctly if I'm to use it at all. So I'm focused on that working even if that means I don't notice that I've botched a different browsing scenario in the process, so I don't expect what works for me will work for everybody.
If there were, it would also have to be supported by whatever tag editor I'm using (which is currently Tag Editor Lite, on Mac, and doesn't appear to). There is a "Comment" tag, that might not be so bad.
Apple Lossless works now? When did this happen? No mention about it that I remember. I just tested it on the stick in my car, and yes it surely does work. Not so much with AIFF files though-loading error as always. This fixed one of my biggest complaints about USB. The next would be to have USB start to play from where it left off, like it used to do. It can’t be that hard.
TunaBug
Member
Oh shoot. That makes me wonder what else might work now. Playlists, anyone? I'll be worrying about all the experiments I could try by don't make time for.
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