Phone Media Player Problem

[Arneb]

Very, very first world, but bear with me.

You may know that I listen to classical music almost exclusively. I have a large CD collection of around 6 or 700 (only about 50 or so of them rock music), which I started collecting when I bought my first CD player at 19. Come to think of it, I still use that player. When I was ill with (I think) pneumonia and an asthma exacerbation in '08 and '09 - we talked about it here -, I ripped my entire CD collection to .mp3, and I've been steady at updating the collection continuously since then. Every new CD - YES, I STILL BUY CDs! Shut up! - goes into the computer first for an Audiograbber treatment. Since the first large round of ripping, I've changed my MO: While in the first round, I only kept the .mp3 file, now I keep the entire collection of.wav files, too. It's legal around here, as you have right to a private copy of the music you own, and disk space is plenty and cheap.
Now you may imagine that listening to classical music has its peculiarities. For example, it is completely uninteresting to sort the pieces by file name. First, because “01 Allegretto” appears quite often and provides insufficient information and context, and second, because you don’t usually listen to a single movement, motet, song without words, aria or whatever as a “song”, you listen to the entire four-movement sonata or a collection of motets or an act in an opera. That typically consists of 3 to 20 pieces, which belong together.

That is why I often did not respect the structure of the pieces as they were on CD: For example, I would create three folders with one Mozart piano concerto each from a CD with three concertos (not always, but I was relatively consistent with that). Or, on the other hand, if a longer piece: a symphony or an opera, comes distributed over several CDs, I put the entire symphony or the entire opera act into one folder: Prelude and Act I of the Götterdämmerung is on two CDs, with the beginning of Act II on the rest of CD II, which then contains the beginning of Act II, etc. I would lump those in folders Wagner, Richard --> Götterdämmerung --> Act I – Act II – Act III. I would even manually rename files in order preserve the alphanumerical listing and thus playing order (because otherwise the file names would be like “07 act 1 scene 3 beginning”, followed by “01 Act 1 scene 3 end”, “02 Act 1 scene 4” if they overlapped between two CDs. So you have to change the numbers at the beginning).

So, the folders, created in Windows explorer, on the hard drive, are what I want to see on my phone and use. On the computer, it’s easy: Go to the folder – Say Brahms, Johannes --> Concertos --> Double concerto for violin and cello a-Minor --> You will find three files, numbered “01 Allegro”, “02 Andante”, “03 Allegro” (or maybe, if the double concerto came second on the original CD, they will be named “04 Allegro”, “05 Andante, “06 Allegro”). You hit “Ctrl.a, Enter", and Stupid Windows Media Player will play the Brahms double concerto for me. Just like I want it.

Now why am I telling you this? Because I have a supermodern zany smart phone, a Samsung Galaxy Note 4. I prefer holding a large chocolate bar to my ear to having a tablet + a smaller phone. Now this phone can take a micro SD card with 128 GB capacity, which means my entire music collection (I just passed 100 GB, with the addition of three Harry Potter novels) fits on the phone. Brilliant! But the media player won’t cooperate: You can show your music as Playlists – there are about 15, which were made at one point or other during the last years, I don’t even know where they were stored; or as “titles”, which gives total gibberish: It lists all 13,000 + individual pieces, starts with those three that have a Spanish question mark at the beginning, followed by one with a misplaced period, followed by those starting with an inverted comma - nothing to do there with the structure of my music, completely unusable. “Albums” is somewhat better, but it still doesn’t transport my neat folder structure; due to naming inconsistencies, you find titles like “Quatuor pour la fin du temps” , a name of piece, beside “Rachmaninoff”, the composer name – still a mess; same with “performer” (only a fraction of my rips even have a performer definition). “Folders” is like “Albums” in that it misses the folder structure and is hopeless for finding anything even without the frequent naming inconsistencies.

OK, I can go to “Files”-->SDcard-->Musik-->” etc. , and easily find the pieces I want. That’s the way the rather pedestrian (ha-ha!) player in my car does it: Go down the menu structure to the folder you want, hit the first piece in the folder, and enjoy. The player works its way down the alphanumerical list. All you have to do Is to manually stop the player after the end of what you want to hear, because otherwise it just jumps to the first piece in the next folder - a minor inconvenience, because you don’t usually want to hear Beethoven’s 5th right after listening to his 4th. So you still have to lift a finger in the end. But in a smartphone, no joy : When I am down to the level of individual pieces or collections, the player lets me start one piece, and stops after it’s played. The player stubbornly refuses to go to the next piece after playing the first, and there is no “Ctrl a, Enter” on a smartphone.

Can you imagine it? I own and use a 500 buck smart phone, with all the latest (or at least, penultimate) gadgetry. It contains an entire, quite enviable music collection which in original form takes up several meters of shelf space; but I can’t the fuck tell the gadget to go to Beethoven’s 4th symphony and play it to me! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I humbly request the help of the more capable members of this forum.

[Lance]

I don't use my phone for music so I don't have a good answer for you, but I have a few ideas of what I would do:

• Ask a teenager, if possible, one that works at a place that sells smartphones
• Look for an alternate music player application that has the sorting features you need.
• Locate a group of people who would have the same problem and ask how they handle it. Perhaps a forum of classical music listeners?

[Enzo]

Did Beethoven start with his 4th, then the 5th and 6th, and only then go back and write the 1st, 2nd and 3rd?

Eroica Strikes Back?

Return of the Pastoral?

[Arneb]

If anything here perfectly symbolizes this Brave New First World we live in, it's this senctence from an experienced systems administrator:

• Ask a teenager, if possible, one that works at a place that sells smartphones

You couldn't have put it better

The funny thing is, I already found my solution. After the long write-up I realized I don'T lack a media player, I lack an app for file administration. It took my five minutes to locate one with the right keywords in a review, download and install itm and have it run: You can set one folder as the "home" directory, so when I fire it up, it shows me my music list right away. Then I click through to the folder containing my piece. Above the list, there is a context-dependent play button, which offers you "Play Music" and "Add to playlist". I choose the first option, and off goes my music. I don't know if the app uses an externeal player or is equipped with one. Anyway, there is a small graphic equalizer, the music continues to play after shutting down the file system - you can stop it from the settings bar at the top of the phone.

This is all I ever wanted.

[Lance]

HA!

Glad you got it sorted out.