Winamp album order question

May 27, 2004 3:32 PM

Winamp question. How do I make Winamp play albums in track order rather than alphabetical order (MI)

I've unchecked the box that says "when loading multiple files, sort by name." The files are sorted correctly when the file names have the track number in the title, but not otherwise. I'm sure part of the problem is that winamp is adding the files from Windows which already put the files in alphabetical order. I want to be able to open an album in Winamp and have it sort by the track number as listed in the ID3 tags.

posted by monkeyman to computers & internet (8 comments total)

In the "Media Library" view, click on "Track #" to reorder them. Winamp treats the current "Media Library" view as a playlist, so whatever order they appear in the ML view, that's the order they will play. You can also sort by length, year rating, etc.

If there are no track numbers listed, right-click on each title, select "Edit selected items" and make the modifications. (This is Winamp 5.03. I don't know about earlier versions.)
posted by arco at 3:51 PM on May 27, 2004

make a playlist, or start ripping your tracks with the track number in the filename.
posted by Hackworth at 5:00 PM on May 27, 2004

Piggyback question - does anybody know how to accomplish the same thing for the Rio portable mp3 player? It plays every track in alphabetical order, even when I went into Explorer and manually changed file names so that tracks all had a # prefix in the title designating the order I wanted them to play. No dice - once it got to the portable it reverted to the track name and alphabetical order...
posted by vito90 at 6:17 PM on May 27, 2004

vito90---the Rio (I am assuming Karma) sorts mp3s using their ID3 tags. You will have to change the tags of your mp3s if you want to change their play order. You may find the riovolution site handy.
posted by TheIrreverend at 3:52 AM on May 28, 2004

Thanks The Irreverend - looks like there's lots of possibilities at that site, it was a site I was unaware of.
posted by vito90 at 5:55 AM on May 28, 2004

Also, a rational file naming convention goes a long way toward making default sort order match that of a published album. Since my music server uses a filesystem capable of using filenames several million characters long, when I'm ripping things, the files are named:
Album - 01 - Artist - Song Title.ogg

By default, just about every media player will let me sort by alpha, and with this scheme the Right Thing happens.

If I want to sort by something other than track order, I just use a player that supports track metadata. If I share the file (horrors!) the recipient knows exactly what it is. If I'm browsing a directory listing of my repository, it's organized if sorted by filename alpha.
posted by majick at 7:26 AM on May 28, 2004

To ensure that my mp3s play in the right order on my computer, on an mp3 CD player that sorts by filename, and on an mp3 jukebox that sorts by ID3 tag information, I always include the track number in the filename and set the track tags.

I like mp3tag for those tasks (on Windows); you can select a range of tracks and use its auto-numbering tool to automatically tag them with consecutive track numbers. You can also rename files from their tags, to get the track numbers (and anything else you want from the tag data) into the filenames.
posted by hashashin at 7:34 AM on May 28, 2004

Thanks Arco.
posted by monkeyman at 9:38 PM on May 31, 2004