Music Sort Order Alphabetical, Not By Track Number

22557 Views 38 Replies 12 Participants Last post by silyman1, Mar 6, 2011

silyman1

Discussion Starter · Dec 18, 2010

Ok so I hope someone out there has a work around that doesn't involve re-labelling 30 GB worth of music manually. The music player in the HDD rips songs from thumb drive, cd, etc. It's an awesome thing. It even pulls the album information from the ether when ripping a cd. BUT... All the songs I imported are now sorted in alphabetical order. Sure, you can categorize by artist, genre, or album... but inside that categorization, we have an alphabetical-based sort order, and not a track-based one. I hope hope hope I'm just looking at some default setting easily fixed with a few tweaks, but I was digging around in there for a while and there doesn't seem to many options for on-board categorization/relabeling.

Ideas?

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Mark Z

· #2 · Dec 18, 2010

silyman1 said:
...All the songs I imported are now sorted in alphabetical order...

Page 7-25 from the Owner Manual indicates that MP-3 files are in alphabetical order, but only in "Song Titles" view. This is if you have loaded the MP-3's onto a CD (or DVD???) and are playing them from the disc player. You can select by folder, playlist, track list, artist, album, genre, and song title. But unfortunately, Track is not listed in the HDD section.

Now, if you are using iTunes and loading from an Apple device there may be a solution. The manual indicates that the HDD can be played by "Playlists." Could you create a playlist and see if those remain in track order? (Others will have to comment about other software, since I have used iTunes for years.)

Another option is to use the iPhone or iPod as the player and skip the HDD, but that's not the cool solution you want.

Thanks for the heads up on the issue. You are saving us valuable time if we need to create those playlists.

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Kmicinski

· #3 · Dec 19, 2010

Even in an iPod the songs underneath an artist tab would be sorted in Alphabetical order. Are you saying that the car won't let you create a playlist? If so I can't see this as being a very big deal. I have never understood playlists anyway. It's all of my own music, why would I have it if I don't want to listen to it? Also if they let you sort by artist that would be good enough for me.

silyman1

Discussion Starter · #4 · Dec 19, 2010

this is in every field, artist search, album, genre, or all songs. I loaded most of my songs through a thumb drive, and another i ripped from a cd. in both instances, there was a nice shiny album on the Hard drive listed in alphabetical order. I suppose the only way to fix this is to change the file's ID3 tag to show the track number first. I suppose I just have to learn how to make playlists and stick to that.

ssj4vegita2002

· #5 · Dec 19, 2010

Maybe dial OnStar next time you are in the car and tell them about this. They'll definitely be listening to user feedback and paying attention. Couldn't hurt.

Mark Z

· #6 · Dec 19, 2010

The playlists on my iPhone play in the original order. It's critical for soundtracks, shows, concerts, or other events that tell a story from the first track to the last. Albums tend to be in order too, but it might require a certain list view for the right order. With shuffle mode, the set order can always become random and the Volt has Shuffle.

When the Volt arrives, I'll experiment with playlists with several albums. If the HDD cannot be made to play in a certain order, then numbering would work. But it's faster for me to burn a CD of MP3s in the exact order for those collections that must be in order. Here is a link to others having alphabetical problems with other GM vehicles using iPod or HDD.

http://www.gminsidenews.com/forums/f39/ipod-does-not-work-right-86128/

silyman1

Discussion Starter · #7 · Dec 19, 2010

I decided to call the Volt Advisory team today. Being a Sunday, my guy didn't have much info for me. A few things to try. But yeah Mark Z, if that link is any indicator, this is a system-wide issue that needs to be addressed in a future software update.

Fingers Crossed. In the meantime, I guess I'm going to have to start sticking a number in front of my songs.

volt11

· #8 · Dec 20, 2010

I'm running into this issue now, too. I find that if you pick the album from the Folder view, it plays in the original order. The problem, though, is that the Folder View is anything but alphabetical to actually find the album you want. As has been pointed out, when playing from "Album" view, and presumably the others, it plays in alphabetical order. Now this is a good example of a computer programmer who should be shot! ;-) (I'm kidding... sort of... OK shot with a paintball.) I know all of these ripped tracks have ID3 tags, too, so I'm not even sure what would solve it, IF you wanted to create new rips of everything you own, which of course I don't.

I hope GM pays attention to this, and that's it's something that can be fixed with a new software update, because they've taken their beautiful, new, state-of-the-art HDD/USB system and made it more annoying than usable where track order is concerned. PLEASE FIX, PLEASE I'M BEGGING YOU!!!....

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volt11

· #9 · Dec 20, 2010

silyman1 said:
I decided to call the Volt Advisory team today. Being a Sunday, my guy didn't have much info for me. A few things to try. But yeah Mark Z, if that link is any indicator, this is a system-wide issue that needs to be addressed in a future software update.

Fingers Crossed. In the meantime, I guess I'm going to have to start sticking a number in front of my songs.

All of my tracks are ripped to a file name that includes the track number before the track name, and they still play in alphabetical order of the track title, which is obviously being taken from the ID3 tags. Not good.

silyman1

Discussion Starter · #10 · Dec 20, 2010

I tried re-importing all my music from my thumb drive. Paying close attention to how i import. Do i hit record when i'm on the all songs selection, or the album selection. And while inside my thumb drive's 'album view' shows the file title "01 hello song", whenever I import into the HDD, it uses the ID3 title info only and not the ID3 track info. Sooo it's not that. BUT that does tell me that for now, in order for me to enjoy my shiny new infotainment system on my volt, I have to buy a 32GB thumb drive to have plugged into the usb port, in order for the system to work right. hmmm

neows6

· #11 · Dec 20, 2010

Not that it solves your issue I have a 2011 CTS with a HDD and it works exactly the same it is not an issue isolated to the Volt but the GM design.

jimcking

· #12 · Dec 20, 2010

silyman1 said:
I tried re-importing all my music from my thumb drive. Paying close attention to how i import. Do i hit record when i'm on the all songs selection, or the album selection. And while inside my thumb drive's 'album view' shows the file title "01 hello song", whenever I import into the HDD, it uses the ID3 title info only and not the ID3 track info. Sooo it's not that. BUT that does tell me that for now, in order for me to enjoy my shiny new infotainment system on my volt, I have to buy a 32GB thumb drive to have plugged into the usb port, in order for the system to work right. hmmm

I have come to the same conclusion. Everything works fine when I access the music from a 32 GB thumb drive or directly from the iPhone. When I transfer the thumb drive music to the HDD in the Volt it does not transfer the playlists and the music gets all lumped together. Can access everything by album, song title, artist, etc, but can not access by playlist. Can make a new playlist in the Volt and that works, but can not use the iPhone playlists from the HDD.

Jim K.

Mark Z

· #13 · Dec 20, 2010

jimcking said:
I have come to the same conclusion. Everything works fine when I access the music from a 32 GB thumb drive or directly from the iPhone. When I transfer the thumb drive music to the HDD in the Volt it does not transfer the playlists and the music gets all lumped together. Can access everything by album, song title, artist, etc, but can not access by playlist. Can make a new playlist in the Volt and that works, but can not use the iPhone playlists from the HDD.

Jim K.

There is the answer I was looking for. The HDD is good for shuffling along, or alphabetical order when you don't want to "plug in" the USB or iPhone/iPod.

Now for the next question. By chance does it retain original song order from a CD album you rip directly to HDD from the Volt DVD/CD drive?

silyman1

Discussion Starter · #14 · Dec 20, 2010

It does not retain original song order from a cd rip. I think our solution is this: Playing back songs from a thumb drive is still alphabetical, but it plays based on the file name, not the title information in the ID3 tag. The Volt's HDD will search for the name of your song in that ID3 tag, and if it's not there it will use the file name. So instead of renaming all your ID3 titles, I suggest we get some batch ID3 tag editor and simply remove all the title information from the songs we intend on loading. This way, it will use the title info which is usually on mp3s still labeled "number title.mp3". I'm going to research how to do that en mass and not have to go through one by one.

faz

· #15 · Dec 20, 2010

Does anyone know or has anyone tried ripping songs directly from an iPhone? I have that and will try it tonight on my way home but I was wondering if someone can say yes or no so that I don't try this in rush hour traffic and crash my new car.

silyman1

Discussion Starter · #16 · Dec 21, 2010

faz said:
Does anyone know or has anyone tried ripping songs directly from an iPhone? I have that and will try it tonight on my way home but I was wondering if someone can say yes or no so that I don't try this in rush hour traffic and crash my new car.

you can't rip anything off an iphone or ipod due to apple's agreement with the record companies. That's why you need special hacker-type programs to even get songs off an iphone from a computer.

silyman1

Discussion Starter · #17 · Dec 22, 2010

I finally got a definitive answer from my volt advisor. It is true, the hdd music system GM currently uses for a large amnt of their fleet is the same as the one in the volt. And all of them have the same fatal flaw. Album view, and all other views, has tracks sorted alphabetically by title, not by track number. While my advisor was quite kind and professional in his answer to me, I felt that he, like I, was also annoyed by this "feature" of GM's. I implore the GM programming team or whoever makes these little changes in code, to do something about this. This basically turns a beautiful 30gb music system into something useless. My volt can rip CDs right in the car and label the songs! Want to play it back the same way it was on the cd? Too freaking bad, your perfectly labelled high fidelity cd rip is now completely reorganized to suit "our" convenience.

I was really looking forward to that feature. Yes there are work-arounds. I plan on stripping any album I put in of an ID3 title, and the system should revert to the file name which has numbers in front of it. But I shouldn't need a work-around. GM's programmers need to step up to the plate and fix this abysmal flaw in their fleet-wide software.

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Stilgar99

· #18 · Dec 22, 2010

silyman1 said:
I plan on stripping any album I put in of an ID3 title, and the system should revert to the file name which has numbers in front of it. But I shouldn't need a work-around. GM's programmers need to step up to the plate and fix this abysmal flaw in their fleet-wide software.

How do you plan on stripping the ID3 tags?

Stilgar

Marty

· #19 · Dec 22, 2010

silyman1 said:
you can't rip anything off an iphone or ipod due to apple's agreement with the record companies. That's why you need special hacker-type programs to even get songs off an iphone from a computer.

But you got them onto the Ipod or Iphone from the computer to begin with, via Itunes. So rather than get them from the Ipod or Iphone, just transfer from your Itunes library to a USB stick, then to your car.

This won't work for any music you bought that's encrypted or DRM protected. (So don't do that, then.)

silyman1

Discussion Starter · #20 · Dec 22, 2010

Stilgar99 said:
How do you plan on stripping the ID3 tags?

Stilgar

There are a few bulk ID3 editors out there. I may have to spend money. on the other side, one could highlight all the music you want to copy, while inside itunes, edit info, and then delete all the titles. Itunes won't work properly then, so you'll have to make a copy of your music, change your music library to that copy, do the work, and then change your library back. Pain in the ass, but doable, and not one-by-one. I'll try it soon and keep everyone posted on how it goes.

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