Author Topic: tranfering playlists to sony walkman  (Read 18494 times)

joshy

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 1
having trouble transfering and playing playlists on my hi def sony walkman. the playlist transfers but the walkman says there is no available playlist to play. I see a few options in preferences but dont understand them entirely, how am I gunna fix this?

phred

  • Global Moderator
  • Sr. Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 9301
Try a different playlist format. What playlist format(s) does the Sony accept?
Download the latest MusicBee v3.5 or 3.6 patch from here.
Unzip into your MusicBee directory and overwrite existing files.

----------
The FAQ
The Wiki
Posting screenshots is here
Searching the forum with Google is  here

AndySocial

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 8

HAL Lives

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 41
WARNING: do NOT install and run Sony Music Center!!! I did and the Sorting Tags for my ENTIRE music collection were corrupted. If you have installed Music Center check your Sorting Tags for albums, and every individual track on the albums, and edit appropriately.

To synchronize Music and Playlists on your Walkman, with leveled sound and embedded artwork, first connected it then select: Edit \ Preferences \ Devices.

Click on your Walkman, or its internal SD card if you have one, depending on where you want to store your music and playlists.

Click on Configure.

On the default “Music” tab select the Playlists you want to synchronize; do NOT check “synchronize music.”

Click on the “Settings” tab.  

Under “media storage” the “storage path” should be the drive letter of your Walkman’s storage, either internal or the SD card.

Check, “use naming template.”

The “music files” template should be: Music\<Album Artist><Album><Title>, plus any other information you want to display.

Under “on the fly conversion” check, “convert to” and select the File Format and degree of Compression you want to use, even if your files are already converted on your PC.

Select, “only convert files not already formatted as…”

Check, “level volume” and then select either Track or Album leveling.

Under “playlist storage” the “playlists path” MUST be: MUSIC\

If you don’t set the Playlist path correctly the Playlist will be created but will NOT work!!! (I missed that step a bunch of times!  :'( )

Do NOT Check, “create a sub-folder for each playlist and its tracks,” IF you have tracks that appear in multiple Playlists; see Note 1.

“save as format” should be: M3U

Under “artwork storage” select, “embed artwork in the music file.”

Click, Save \ Apply \ Save, and you should be good to go!

Next go to one of your Playlists and, Right Click \ Send To \ Device \ your Walkman’s internal storage or SD card.

Once the transfer is complete go to the Sony’s main screen and click on “Playlists” and you should see the Playlist you’ve just created with the number of individual tracks it contains, then go to the Folder view, and you should see all the music that has been transferred to the device; see Notes 2 & 3.

I've just transferred over 10 days worth of music onto my NW-A45 using the above settings so I'm pretty sure they work... good luck!

NOTE 1: If you have separate tracks from Band X in Playlists 1 & 2, but would also like to have a Playlist of JUST Band X, if you check “create a sub-folder…” MusicBee will create 3 folders on your Sony, Playlist 1 and 2 and Band X. The Band X folder is a duplicate of all the music already in lists 1 & 2, taking up unnecessary space on your device.

NOTE 2: According to Sony you can have a maximum of 999 tracks per Playlist. Obviously if you have a Playlist with over a 999 tracks in MB you'll have to split it... which sux, but it is what it is.

NOTE 3: With the Sony still connected, if you look at the “Music” folder in Windows Explorer you’ll see all the transferred FLAC files and M3U playlist files.
Last Edit: April 22, 2018, 07:14:28 PM by HAL Lives

Progatron

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 13
Thanks for that detailed post! Sadly, this does not work for my Sony NWZ-A17. I did every step listed above and double-checked them all, but the Walkman still does not show the playlist I put on it. I've spent the last two days searching for a way to get MusicBee to properly work with the Walkman, and I think I'm resigned to the fact that I'll just have to go back to MediaGo (which I hated using.)

I wish I could view my device in grid format/album covers, etc. the way I can with my music library. I love everything else about MusicBee, and have it all looking just the way I want it, but without Walkman functionality, it will eventually fall to the wayside. :( 

silvertriclops

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 8
Not OP but I have it working fine with my NW-A45:

Music must be stored under MUSIC\, you can organize it however you want as long as it's under that folder.

playlists path: MUSIC\Playlists\ ( MUSIC\ should work fine too, in fact you should try this first and then see if you can organize it further if it works)

save as format: M3U and M3U8 both work for my player, but try M3U first

path prefix for tracks: / (Default is Windows-style \ which does NOT work for Linux-based devices)

I don't have use relative file paths checked, but you can see if it works.

Artwork storage: Embed it in the music file and RESIZE IT - not sure about the older ones but the newer touchscreen ones display artwork exactly 400x400px so put 400 in that box. More importantly, they can't read jpegs saved with progressive encoding, so you'll have weird issues viewing your album art unless you have MusicBee resize it since it uses baseline encoding which the Walkmans can read.

Lyrics: embed them in the music file

Audiobooks: some walkmans including mine have a Learning mode, which is a separate play queue from the music queue and you can change playback speed. If your walkman has that, store your audiobooks using whatever folder hierarchy you want to use as long as they are under LEARNING\

Hope this helps.

HAL Lives

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 41
@ silvertriclops: You're absolutely right about the baseline encoding of the artwork, however I create/edit all my artwork in Photoshop, each image is 602 x 602 pxls and embedded in the music file; I don't resize them for the Walkman and they show up just fine.

And yes, the Playlist Path is absolutely critical; I must have missed that step half a dozen times and it was driving me crazy!  :'(

The one thing I discovered after I posted the above is that the Sound Leveling doesn't work; at least I haven't been able to get it to.

After trying multiple times and posting questions asking for help I finally just duplicated by library and permanently changed the volume of the files to the Replaygain Track values, as I listen to my music in Shuffled Playlists, whether on my PC or Walkman.

As far as I know the only DAP's that support Replaygain Tags are Android devices, and even then only with a 3rd party app/plug-in.


Progatron

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 13
I've been following these replies and ensuring all these settings match what you guys are saying, and I have made progress. At least now, I have managed to get a playlist to copy to the Walkman. However, one track refuses to be included for some reason (even though it's from the same album as one of the other tracks that did copy over.) So at least I know it works and can work through the glitches as I go.

Here's my real question though: How can I create and maintain playlists with the wealth of music that is already on my device? Doing it this way finally seems to be working, but it is adding the music again under different filenames, so if I look at a particular album that I used songs from in a playlist, those songs are now duplicated. I don't want to add those songs, I just want to tell the Walkman what order to play them in. I have over 100 gigs of music already on it, but I need to make playlists with separate software and send them to it that way, since there is no ability to move things around directly on the device itself (unlike iPods, etc.)

Hopefully this is possible, and is just a minor setting that I'm not seeing somewhere.

As a last resort, I could use MediaGo if I am only making a playlist, but I'm concerned that after all my hard work tagging my music collection exactly how I want it, it would get all screwed up (as it did several years back making the transition from iTunes to MediaGo when my old iPod classic died and I decided to try something new... what a mess.) I don't trust using multiple music library programs, because they each seem to want things their own way.  ;D
Last Edit: June 17, 2018, 12:47:38 AM by Progatron

SpencerTC

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 3
Apologies for the necrobump, but this thread was the reason I created an account.

I've followed the steps and recommendations in this thread, but I had one problem with my Sony Walkman A45:
The playlists don't carry their subfolders into the device. I created several playlist subfolders in MusicBee, but when I sync'd them to my Walkman, they just took all the M3U files and dumped them into one collection. It's an absolute mess.

Was there a way I could carry over my MusicBee-created playlist subfolders and import them into the Walkman for better organization?

phred

  • Global Moderator
  • Sr. Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 9301
Was there a way I could carry over my MusicBee-created playlist subfolders and import them into the Walkman for better organization?
Preferences > Devices > [select device] > Configure > Settings > playlist storage > create a sub-folder for each playlist and it's tracks.
Download the latest MusicBee v3.5 or 3.6 patch from here.
Unzip into your MusicBee directory and overwrite existing files.

----------
The FAQ
The Wiki
Posting screenshots is here
Searching the forum with Google is  here

SpencerTC

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 3
Was there a way I could carry over my MusicBee-created playlist subfolders and import them into the Walkman for better organization?
Preferences > Devices > [select device] > Configure > Settings > playlist storage > create a sub-folder for each playlist and it's tracks.

When I tried this option, it translated that to mean make copies of the entire MP3s into subfolders within the "Playlists" folder.


HAL Lives

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 41
@ Spencer

Yeah, I'd tried the same thing with the same results, each track was duplicated, hence "Note 1."

NOTE 1: If you have separate tracks from Band X in Playlists 1 & 2, but would also like to have a Playlist of JUST Band X, if you check “create a sub-folder…” MusicBee will create 3 folders on your Sony, Playlist 1 and 2 and Band X. The Band X folder is a duplicate of all the music already in lists 1 & 2, taking up unnecessary space on your device.

SpencerTC

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 3
But were you ever able to find a way to have subfolders in your playlists display on your Walkman?

HAL Lives

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 41
@ Spencer

Sorry, never was. I just have individual playlists with no subfolders.

The biggest issue for me is the inability of the Sony to read the Replaygain Track Values, so no Sound Leveling.

The only way 'round that is to make a duplicate of your playlists and then permanently adjust the track volume to the Replaygain value in MusicBee before transferring the Playlists to the Walkman, so your music collection then takes up twice as much space on your system HD.

I haven't researched it since my original post, but at that time as far as I could discover the only DAP's that could read Replaygain values were Android devices, but you had to use a 3rd party app from the Google Store.

If anyone has any updated information or other workarounds on this issue I'd love to hear them!

thetroubleshooter

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 2
how do i get the playlist order to show up exactly how i want it in the sony walkman, it seems like it tends to randomly just show the playlist in any order, its not even alphabetical ,