[electricdiver]

I’m trying to transfer a playlist to a USB stick which I’m storing my music on. Here’s my method so far:
Using Windows Media Player (WMP) to rip CDs to my PC (Windows 10). This is very straightforward and works very well.

At this point it is again pretty simple to setup various playlists in WMP to play what I want, when I want, in the order I want.

I then sync my music to a USB drive, again using WMP. WMP sets up the files in a MUSIC folder which contains a folder for each artist,inside each artist folder is a folder album - root/MUSIC/ARTIST/ALBUM/song

At this point everything is good. The Volt sees each folder and I can select whatever artist/album/song I want. The issue is that I don’t care much for how the infotainment chooses to play the music on its own. (Alphabetically by artist or song? Whatever, I don't really care how it's doing it, the simpe fact is I don't like the way it's getting done.) The answer is to create a few playlists and that seems easier said than done.

The problem may be that WMP doesn’t sync playlists. And that WMP defaults to a .wpl format for playlists which isn’t recognized by the Volt. A little research and it’s a simple process to get WMP to SAVE AS a .m3u file which the Volt should recognize per the manual. WMP saves all the playlists in a PLAYLISTS folder inside the default MUSIC folder on the PC (C: User/MUSIC/PLAYLISTS).

Since WMP doesn’t sync the playlist folder with the music I’ve tried manually copying the folder to the USB drive, placing the folder inside the main music folder (USB/Music/Playlists). No luck. I’ve also tried placing the m3u file (named favorites.m3u) by itself in the USB root directory (USB-favorites.m3u) and in the Music directory (USB/Music-favorites.m3u).

So, I can listen to the actual music from the USB just fine, it’s getting a specific playlist from the PC to the Volt that is stumping me. I’ve always stuck with WMP for my limited music needs. It comes with Windows OS so it’s got a good price point (free) and it’s easy to setup to start with (again, included with Windows). Maybe I need some kind of playlist creator/sync app?

This is the first vehicle I’ve had with any kind of USB input, so this is my first experience with this type of thing. Up to this point I’ve always carried a few CDs in the car. Any tips are much appreciated.

 

[voganni]

Since the Volt recognizes folders on the USB stick, you could create your playlists as separate folders. "shuffle all" (when in song display) is what I use sometimes. There is also the "play more like this" which makes a playlist of songs similar to the one you're listening too, and stores in in "playlists."

 

[O'Dell]

I just copied 4000 songs from the computer to a USB drive using no folders. Then I hit shuffle and it's unlikely I'll hear the same song twice for a loooong time. The random setting on my two German cars is better because that plays all the songs on the drive before repeating, but shuffle works. If I don't care for a song it wouldn't be on my computer in the first place.

 

[voganni]

Well I like to organize folders according to artist and album, so I can listen to a particular album if I want. The Volt, if listening in "all songs" mode, will shuffle between all folders and artists. Or you can shuffle within an artist or album. I feel it's set up pretty well. I also like the album art that appears with each song, if it was available when recorded to the USB drive.

 

[TripleTrucker]

My 2012 will not show album art, correct?

 

[TSquare]

My 2012 will not show album art, correct?

My 2013 would show album art, but it had the MyLink System. I think some of the "end of the year" 2012 models also had the MyLink System.

 

[donstim]

You're close. Your setup is the same as mine: root/MUSIC\ARTIST\ALBUM\song. For my 2012 Volt, the playlists need to be in .m3u format as you know, and they need to be placed in the USB stick's root directory. The key is that the listings in the playlist need to contain the entire path to the desired song, that is, MUSIC\ARTIST\ALBUM\song.filetype (note: these are back slashes, not forward slashes as you put in your message).

Someone previously advised changing the name associated with the USB drive whenever you make changes to the playlists or songs on the stick to make sure the Volt re-initializes for the changes. For example, I have mine named MYMUSICX, with X being a number from 1 to 9 that I increment each time I make a change (starting over at 1 again after 9).

Album art for my 2012 Volt (no MyLink) will only show if the art is embedded in the music file itself.