How do I set up a good mp3 player sync scenario?

May 10, 2010 4:42 AM

How do I set up an effective sync scenario with Media Monkey and my Philips mp3 player?

I am new to synchronizing my mp3 player. I've had these players for years, but I've always just moved files to them with Windows Explorer, as if putting files on a thumb drive.

It gets complicated though when you have gigs of tracks and can't remember if you already put a specific one there. So, my player is always loaded with a bunch of stuff I don't even listen to.

I downloaded an application called Media Monkey, which supposedly can sync my mp3 player with its media library. From what I can tell, I can either set it so that it keeps the contents of my player in sync with the contents of a specific folder or set of folders on my drive, or I can use playlists to tell Media Monkey what to put on the player.

I'm concerned that if I just start doing this arbitrarily I'll end up deleting something I don't want to lose, or otherwise messing up my player. That's why I'd like to know if you have any tips regarding mp3 player syncing or things you wish you had known when you first got into the habit of it.

I'd like to be able to add entire folders (audiobooks or albums), AND also just individual tracks that can be shuffled through. I am trying to figure out the easiest way to make this a smooth process, and would appreciate any suggestions.

posted by Unhyper to technology (3 answers total)

Did you pay for Media Monkey? It's been a while since I used it, but the free version did not support syncing when I was using it. And to answer your direct question, I don't worry about it. Life is too short to spend a lot of energy trying to make sure my MP3 player contents perfectly reflects my mood at the moment. If a song comes on that I don't want to hear I press the forward button. Once every 3 or 4 months or so I delete everything on my MP3 player and then drag whatever grabs my fancy at the moment back onto it. My experience has been that it is difficult to delete something permanently from a music library. Most of the tools I've used pop up all kinds of dire warnings before deleting a file. Also, if you backing up your media library (and you are backing up your media library, right?) it becomes less of an issue as you can always restore from the backup if you do accidentally delete something.
posted by COD at 6:53 AM on May 10, 2010

For my iPod, I created a playlist within MediaMonkey called "iPod Sync List." I then move all the music I want to that and sync the iPod to that playlist. With the playlist, I have a rough idea how much space the music I've selected will take up on the iPod.

You can set up your player to autosync within MediaMonkey by right-clicking the player within the file tree and going to Properties (or Configure Device). From there you can select a playlist you wish to auto sync the player with. Within the same window, the Auto-Sync Options tab has a setting for if you want to auto sync the player every time it's connected. I don't personally use this, but it's handy if you have a smaller player you want to change frequently. (If you don't use this feature, just right click on the device within the tree and select Auto Sync whenever you want to update the player.)

Also check out the Auto-Conversion tab just in case you store your music on your computer in a format incompatible with your player (FLAC, for example). You can set up an auto-conversion to a compatible format.

By the way, I've found the MediaMonkey forums to be very helpful, and a great resource for finding useful scripts.
posted by Dr-Baa at 7:52 AM on May 10, 2010

Oh, and for a sanity check, just back up the contents of your player somewhere on your computer before doing the first sync. That way you'll have a backup just in case everything goes south.
posted by Dr-Baa at 7:55 AM on May 10, 2010