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Creating a universal mp3 playlist on a mac?

I

Imola Ghost

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Mar 21, 2009
1,153
12
I have a USB hard drive in my car and I want to create some playlists out of the music on the hard drive.

Is there a free program or can itunes do this for use OUTSIDE of an ipod/iphone?
 
Yes, iTunes can create playlists, whether or not you have an iPod or iPhone.
 
Would that mean I would have to load that music from my USB hard drive into itunes in order to create a playlist, correct?

If so, is there another way easier way? I remember using a program on a PC that all I had to do way browse the music on the hard drive or folder and drag it. If I had to load all of my music on that hard drive it takes HOURS to load since there's so many songs.
 
Imola Ghost said:
Would that mean I would have to load that music from my USB hard drive into itunes in order to create a playlist, correct?
Click to expand...
Yes, but you can add that music to iTunes without copying it. The files can stay on your external drive and still be in your iTunes library.

You could also create a "playlist" of sorts in Finder, by creating aliases to mp3 files, but you would still need an app to play those files. iTunes is a far more elegant and efficient solution.
 
I'm not sure if you realized from my previous post is that it takes HOURS to load all of this music into itunes.
 
Imola Ghost said:
I'm not sure if you realized from my previous post is that it takes HOURS to load all of this music into itunes.
Click to expand...

Yes, but you only have to do that once. Once the library is built, you only need to plug in your drive and launch iTunes. It doesn't have to reload it each time.
 
I've got the exact same music on my USB hard drive as I do my Macbook Pro which is where iTunes now gets its library.
 
How does your car organize playlists? Does it put each playlist in a folder, or is there some kind of XML or other data files, or does it use M3U files a la Winamp? How you may or may not be able to create playlists for your car to use is going to depend on how the car stores playlists to begin with....
 
mkrishnan said:
How you may or may not be able to create playlists for your car to use is going to depend on how the car stores playlists to begin with....
Click to expand...

Exactly. This is why I was wondering why GGJ was going on about iTunes. iTunes doesn't even support non-Apple players anymore in the first place, so I don't know how creating a playlist in iTunes is going to help you.
 
miles01110 said:
This is why I was wondering why GGJ was going on about iTunes. iTunes doesn't even support non-Apple players anymore in the first place, so I don't know how creating a playlist in iTunes is going to help you.
Click to expand...

Because I misunderstood the original post:
Imola Ghost said:
I have a USB hard drive in my car and I want to create some playlists out of the music on the hard drive.
Click to expand...
It sounded to me like they wanted to create some playlists on the computer from the music currently stored on the USB drive. I didn't get that the playlists were intended to be used in the car.
 
I have my music stored on the hard drive in alphabetical order and each artist i put in the following folders.

0-9
A
B
C
D
etc.

When you make a playlist, it stores the PLAYLISTS at the beginning of the folder structure. You can name the playlist anything you want, but it will put them in an alphabetical order.

My car see's these playlist's. M3U, PLS, ASX, and WPL
 
Imola Ghost said:
My car see's these playlist's. M3U, PLS, ASX, and WPL
Click to expand...

So basically, if you create a playlist file in one of those formats, put it in the root of your HD, and have it reference songs on the HD itself, then it shows up in alphabetical order as a playlist in the car's interface, yeah? I think we're getting somewhere now. :)

Songbird might be able to help you...

http://getsongbird.com/product/

It has an add-on for exporting playlists in M3U or PLS.

http://addons.songbirdnest.com/addon/51

Songbird should be able to use the song files "in place" -- that is, it uses the library as it exists on the HD and not on your Mac. You want to do it this way, because otherwise the locations of the song files in the M3U file will not be correct.
 
mkrishnan said:
So basically, if you create a playlist file in one of those formats, put it in the root of your HD, and have it reference songs on the HD itself, then it shows up in alphabetical order as a playlist in the car's interface, yeah? I think we're getting somewhere now. :)

Songbird might be able to help you...

http://getsongbird.com/product/

It has an add-on for exporting playlists in M3U or PLS.

http://addons.songbirdnest.com/addon/51

Songbird should be able to use the song files "in place" -- that is, it uses the library as it exists on the HD and not on your Mac. You want to do it this way, because otherwise the locations of the song files in the M3U file will not be correct.
Click to expand...


You got it.

I used to use a program called "Tag & Rename" on the PC and all I had to do was just put the mp3 files in a playlist, name it whatever I wanted and done.
 
GGJstudios said:
I think the question might be "what is your car's music system?" What brand/name/model/version?
Click to expand...


I have a 2009 Audi S5 with the Bang & Olufusen sound system. You can have an iPod, mp3 player, USB hard drive, or a A2DP streaming connection.
 
Imola Ghost said:
I have a 2009 Audi S5 with the Bang & Olufusen sound system. You can have an iPod, mp3 player, USB hard drive, or a A2DP streaming connection.
Click to expand...

How are you, I also been looking for a way to do this.
I have a BMW that lets me use a usb flash drive / hard drive etc. to play back music.
Tried using itunes, but the playlist it makes is for the location of the music on my computer.
 
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