KevinC
Autocross Champion
- Car(s)
- '19 Golf R, '21 M2c
When I first bought my '16 Golf R last June, I put an iPod Nano semi-permanently in the center cubby, thinking I'd found the ideal solution for having complete access to all my music and playlists all the time, without having to plug in my iPhone and use CarPlay. This solution works quite well, however there are a few downsides. One, I don't want to leave any iPod hooked up in my car 24/7, especially during the summer months here in Phoenix, when car interiors reach surface-of-the-sun-like temperatures. Second, you lose the "Coverplay" functionality, which I think a lot of people don't even realize is a thing as it's not documented in the manual. It's a really cool feature. More on that later.
Below is the file layout you want on your SD card or USB stick. Later I'll talk about how I exported mine via a MacOS program called Export for iTunes, which sells for $7.99 in the App Store. Very reasonable price for all its capabilities.
Format your media as ExFAT. No matter how you move your files to your media, arrange them like this:
The shot above shows my m3u playlists in the root directory, and a "Music" directory, under which all your files will be stored like this:
I exported my files with track numbers added, though they aren't necessary for the songs to play in the correct order - the id tags on the files themselves identify where they belong. I also exported the album artwork in its own file, though again this shouldn't be necessary as the artwork will be found with the individual tracks.
Here's how I exported my playlists & albums using Export for iTunes as mentioned above:
I checked only the playlists I wanted to bring over - leaving out iTunes default stuff like "all music", "no lyrics" etc. The options I chose are shown. I see one error in that screenshot - you want to include the playlists, not just the files as I have checked here. Whoops. They will be exported to the root directory.
Next I exported all my albums, as shown here:
No converting going on here, what you want is the original AAC (m4a) format.
Another gotcha on the (first) above shot - I redid the export without the "save m3u files in the same folder with tracks". If you do this as shown, all those playlists for each individual album will show up as playlists in your library view on your MIB2 screen, which is completely redundant, and they're not needed for the albums to play correctly. So don't do that, uncheck that box.
Yes, all this can be done manually, but it's pretty tedious, and this program is cheap IMHO at $8 and totally automates the process. It also has a bunch of other capabilities like converting formats that aren't necessary here but might be of use to you at some point.
I mentioned Coverflow - you get this feature when using SD card or USB media, but it does not work with an iPod connected, for whatever reason. While playing music, when you move your hand close to the screen and the menu labels appear, your album art also fan out like this...
Tap the album cover, and voila, you get this...
Now you can simply swipe through your albums, and go directly to one by tapping on the cover you stop on. They are in alphabetical order by album title, and there's no way to sort them differently, unfortunately - I'd prefer by artist - but it's still really cool and immensely useful IMHO.
Free up your USB port and go SD card, it's slicker than snot. I use a Class 10 card from SanDisk. Any non-crappy card at that speed should work fine.
Below is the file layout you want on your SD card or USB stick. Later I'll talk about how I exported mine via a MacOS program called Export for iTunes, which sells for $7.99 in the App Store. Very reasonable price for all its capabilities.
Format your media as ExFAT. No matter how you move your files to your media, arrange them like this:
The shot above shows my m3u playlists in the root directory, and a "Music" directory, under which all your files will be stored like this:
I exported my files with track numbers added, though they aren't necessary for the songs to play in the correct order - the id tags on the files themselves identify where they belong. I also exported the album artwork in its own file, though again this shouldn't be necessary as the artwork will be found with the individual tracks.
Here's how I exported my playlists & albums using Export for iTunes as mentioned above:
I checked only the playlists I wanted to bring over - leaving out iTunes default stuff like "all music", "no lyrics" etc. The options I chose are shown. I see one error in that screenshot - you want to include the playlists, not just the files as I have checked here. Whoops. They will be exported to the root directory.
Next I exported all my albums, as shown here:
No converting going on here, what you want is the original AAC (m4a) format.
Another gotcha on the (first) above shot - I redid the export without the "save m3u files in the same folder with tracks". If you do this as shown, all those playlists for each individual album will show up as playlists in your library view on your MIB2 screen, which is completely redundant, and they're not needed for the albums to play correctly. So don't do that, uncheck that box.
Yes, all this can be done manually, but it's pretty tedious, and this program is cheap IMHO at $8 and totally automates the process. It also has a bunch of other capabilities like converting formats that aren't necessary here but might be of use to you at some point.
I mentioned Coverflow - you get this feature when using SD card or USB media, but it does not work with an iPod connected, for whatever reason. While playing music, when you move your hand close to the screen and the menu labels appear, your album art also fan out like this...
Tap the album cover, and voila, you get this...
Now you can simply swipe through your albums, and go directly to one by tapping on the cover you stop on. They are in alphabetical order by album title, and there's no way to sort them differently, unfortunately - I'd prefer by artist - but it's still really cool and immensely useful IMHO.
Free up your USB port and go SD card, it's slicker than snot. I use a Class 10 card from SanDisk. Any non-crappy card at that speed should work fine.
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