[davyk31]

My new X5 has the USB interface in the centre console, not knowing much about music except sticking in the tradional CDs I need some help.

I have ordered a 16gb USB stick, how best do I transfer music to it, do I rip CDs via Windows Media player and then copy to the stick, should it just be whatever format it copies in or should it be MP3 or whatever.

How many tracks will be 16gb stick hold?

What about downloading music, again never done this, can I download to the laptop and then copy to the stick. Where is best to do this from etc and what formats?

Thanks ...... sorry for all the questions.

[Ant Man]

Can't help but I wanted to know this sort of stuff too. I think 16GB should be enough for well over 2,000 songs. Is that enough?

I'm a bit of an audiophile, never downloaded a song and always buy CDs.......perhaps I'm old skool too? So my question is with regards to sound quality and I'd hate to lose it. What should I do to get my CD music to USD and how pls? I have window vista and no fancy apps.

[doughboy]

I made the 'change' to electronic storage when I got this car with the USB port.

If you want to digitise your whole collection, as I did, its a bit of a minefield of formats and you need to make the best decision for your needs up front as it could be a lot of time wasted if you go the wrong way.

MP3 is the most common compressed format and BMW plays this of course, but there's no such thing as a free lunch and sound quality will suffer unless you use high bit rates.

If you want to keep near CD quality you can use MP3, but you need to use the highest bit rates i.e. 320kbs constant bit rate (often called 320CBR). The most common bit rate is 192, which seems to satisfy kids at bus stops listening to some tish off the x factor on their mobile phone, but you will think its garbage if you like any kind of quality sound. I have 5000 ish tracks taking 58GB on a 64GB stick.

For master storage I ended up going for a lossless format (FLAC) which means all my CDs are stored at home without any loss of quality. BUT the BMW system won't play FLAC, so I have to batch convert the lot into MP3 overnight then put that on the USB stick. But as my masters are recorded in a lossless format i will never ever have to re-save them as better formats come along, I can just revert back to the masters and convert them into something else. This is good as it took weeks of evenings to rip them all and they are now boxed up in the loft.

If you put all your archive on MP3 for example then you've already lost quality that you can never get back in the future, that said theres plenty of stuff I've downloaded in MP3 only, but that's the most common format so its bound to happen.

BMW will play WML (windows media lossless) but I didn't want to use a windows format in particular. Like I said it can be a minefield. You'll need a ripper / encoder package which are easy to get free trials and you can try different formats and see.

IMO the free media monkey system is the dogs. You can rip and convert and change formats from anything to anything, do batch conversions as well - and organise all your track name tags etc.

http://www.mediamonkey.com/

also http://www.dbpoweramp.com/ is very good

You're best to keep all the music on a safe computer at home then just copy what you want onto the USB stick for the car. If you want to use the search or playlist or music type functions in the car though then your track names and tags etc need to be in good order - which is a whole saga in is own right as it seems no one at record companies can even spell an artists name the same way from one album to the next!!!!!

[the_rangdo]

+1

320CBR should be good enough for the car, it's not exactly the perfect listening environment anyway.

Lossless you'd get maybe 2-3 albums per GB, high bitrate MP3 should roughly double that (or more) and given the environment you'd have to be pretty exacting to tell the difference.

[davyk31]

Thanks guys, I have already copied 3 or 4 albums to my laptop when I was making second copies of CDs for the car. These were done via media player in Windows 7, what format will these be? I was thinking I just need to copy these from my laptop to the stick but maybe it isn't that simple??

[doughboy]

Check the settings in media player, there must be some RIP settings like format and speed. Unless you were doing a CD copy? In that case its different as the data is not available for you to use, just for media player to copy onto another CD.

In explorer, if you right click on the music files you can check the properties and it should tell you the format etc.

If they are MP3 for example, or any format that BMW will play, you can just copy them to the stick after they're saved on the laptop no problems. Just use file explorer to drag and drop.

[davyk31]

And how do you arrange the music on the stick, do you do it by album? What if there are a number of individual songs?

Also how does the car search the USB stick, I can see in Idrive where to access the USB source, does this then list on the screen all the songs or albums on the stick and you simply choose one or should it all be done by folders?

[doughboy]

Minefield? Yep.

I put everything in folders by artist, then subfolders of albums by that artist, then the tracks all together in the relevant album folder. I have a folder called 'compilations' where I put compilation albums by name rather than splitting compilations into their individual track artists. Compilation albums cause problems due to the multi artist names and need to be handled differently. Also, some single artist albums may often have a track on them that is be credited to a different artist, this often cause a new album folder to be created just for that track!!

It can be tricky, for example you may have a compilation album with say a track on it by Oasis, but would you want that Oasis track kept with the Compilation album, or filed with your other Oasis Albums as a single track? Personally I want my library to mimic the original source CD / album rather than be a giant pot of 'tracks'

This folder method suits me as I can manually find what I want by using the 'search folder' option in idrive. It also matches the folder layout i use for the master collection at home. You can set how the ripping sofware will save the music as it rips it

Remember, every track contains 'tags' or naming data that you can't see but the music player (car, ipod whatever) can. So it knows the track name, artist, album name etc and this will be displayed by the player.

Some people just throw all the tracks in on giant folder and then rely on the player software to find the ones they want.

Even if you store by folders like I do, you can still ask the car to play a certain artist for example and it will then start playing everything by that artist.

I would reccomend the media monkey software (the free one) as it allows you to see and alter the 'tag' data manually and by batch. It is also a great way to manage your music library as it grows.

Problems will occur with auto-track-naming, this is done automatically as you rip with info from internet CD track naming databases. The main problems are spelling mistakes and variations in artists names etc that will fool the player into thinking its a different artist for example. Incorrect categories are common as well as names in the wrong fields.

You can change and correct these tags very easily in media monkey.

[Nick999]

Originally Posted by davyk31

And how do you arrange the music on the stick, do you do it by album? What if there are a number of individual songs?

Also how does the car search the USB stick, I can see in Idrive where to access the USB source, does this then list on the screen all the songs or albums on the stick and you simply choose one or should it all be done by folders?

I coppied about 30 albums to a 4gb usb stick.

When you rip an album to Windows media player, it will automatically store in the Music folder on your PC on Windows Media Audio file (.wma) format.

Simply plug your memory stick into a spare usb port. Open folder to view files. Create new file. Name it same as album, then simply drag and drop each track in to the folder.
Dont be tempted to drag the whole album across, as I foud the album cover file confuses my Professional head unit!! Tries to read it.

To play in car. simply select usb tab in Audio settings on your head unit. Dont forget to set your bass and treble settings first. This has to be done seperate for CD and radio also.

Select wich album you want from menu. Will always play in alphabetical order tho'

Works very well. So much better than a CD auto changer

[doughboy]

Originally Posted by Nick999

Will always play in alphabetical order

That's because when the tracks were ripped it hasn't been set to put the track number infront of the track name, for example:

Track name = "01 - Wagner The Love Machine"

This means the car has to use the track name instead, and thus puts them in alphabetical order instead of in track number order...

When you set this, make sure you ask for a preceeding '0' i.e. 01, 02, 03 etc otherwse they will play in another wrong order eg:

1, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,


Honestly, media monkey is easier to use and does a shed load more things then window media player.

[BanziBarn]

Seriously, get involved in some Media Monkey action - since starting to use this my music collection has never been so well organised!

[Nick999]

Originally Posted by doughboy

That's because when the tracks were ripped it hasn't been set to put the track number infront of the track name, for example:

Track name = "01 - Wagner The Love Machine"

This means the car has to use the track name instead, and thus puts them in alphabetical order instead of in track number order...

When you set this, make sure you ask for a preceeding '0' i.e. 01, 02, 03 etc otherwse they will play in another wrong order eg:

1, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,


Honestly, media monkey is easier to use and does a shed load more things then window media player.

Oh I see, just the same as storing pictures.. Thanks for that, I will try Media Monkey

[Ant Man]

Thanks Mike. I might give this a try over Xmas with Media Monkey. Does the make of USD stick matter? Surely they're much of a muchness? It just needs to be short enough to fit in the armrest if no cable is used?

[doughboy]

Originally Posted by Ant Man

Thanks Mike. I might give this a try over Xmas with Media Monkey. Does the make of USD stick matter? Surely they're much of a muchness? It just needs to be short enough to fit in the armrest if no cable is used?

Any stick should do, just format it for FAT32 not NTFS by the way as the car can't read NTFS as far as I know.

You're best off using a short usb extension cable anyway as the risk of snapping off the stick (or worse, the socket) is pretty high if its sticking up in the air under the armrest.

New cars come with a short extension lead anyway (mine did), so BMW must think it's necessary too.

BTW BMW say the car will play the following:

The USB audio interface supports the mainstream compression formats MP3 (mp3), AAC (aac, m4a, m4b), WAV/PCM (wav) and WMA (wma, asf) and playlists in M3U format

[Shadow]

People have had different experiences with different USB sticks. I bought a 32GB Corsair USB 2.0 Ultra Compact from Scan and it worked a treat; it's also tiny so you don't need an extension cable unless you want to chop and change what's plugged in.

Also, be careful what format the tags are written in, especially for MP3. The MP3 tag standard, ID3, is pretty miserable and there are many different flavours. I have a non-iDrive E90, and not all tag formats work - e.g. the audio UI becomes unresponsive , takes forever to recognise the USB stick, etc.

Use MP3 Tag to see and edit tags (not just MP3, does FLAC & WMP etc.). I found that writing the most basic ID3V1 tag and removing ID3V2 was the "most compatible" with my car. YMMW as ever.

Of course, that means I now have a physical CD library, a FLAC "master" library of ripped CDs, an MP3-for-car library (CBR, ID3V1 tags) and a portable music library (MP3 VBR, IDV3V2.4, embedded artwork). Sigh. I now understand why people buy Apple.

[chris330D]

If you want ease of use and have a USB port the other option is to buy an iPOD (doesn't need to be new) and use iTUNES to organise/copy the music etc etc. I have an old 32Gb iPOD just for the car and it works a treat.

[doughboy]

Originally Posted by chris330D

If you want ease of use and have a USB port the other option is to buy an iPOD (doesn't need to be new) and use iTUNES to organise/copy the music etc etc. I have an old 32Gb iPOD just for the car and it works a treat.

Yes that would be easy and work well, but it would mean buying an Apple product.

[chris330D]

[Tee212]

Cant remember the last time i used a CD for audio playback lol.

[Ant Man]

I ordered a 32GB mini Voyager which fits easily under the armrest and was was pre-formatted to FAT32.

Using Mike's advice above, I downloaded Media Monkey and began ripping at 320CDR and organising / naming my music how I wanted. To be honest MM pretty much does it all without much tweeking - a brilliant piece of software.

I'm really impressed with the speed at which songs can be selected via i-drive, be it, different albums, artists etc. Much, much faster than the CD changer.

It's great be able to view all the music info such as: artist, album and song name on the i-drive screen.

I am a convert and have removed my 7 CDs from the car.

Cheers Mike.

[Rochdale Pioneers]

I ditched my CDs (and MiniDiscs) years ago to go fully electronic. I never got aurally the difference between 128 or even 96 CBR wma and lossless (even on decent speakers/ear buds) so all my files are compressed.

BMW makes it a doddle by playing WMA! Most will only play MP3.

[creepy coupe]

When I rip to WMP, it automatically creates a separate folder on my PC's hard drive, I then just drag and drop the whole folder to the USB.

You might want to create a folder on your USB first and drop music to it, this keeps things a bit neater on the cars HDD