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Author Topic: Playing More Than One Track At a Time from External Devices  (Read 1031 times)

holden4th

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Playing More Than One Track At a Time from External Devices
« on: October 13, 2018, 02:25:55 am »

Hello Everyone

I've returned to MC after a break of over 12 months. I was originally using a PC but now have an iMac. When using MC21 on my PC I could play complete albums from my Verbatim HD. This HD is now connected to my iMac and all I can do with MC24 is play one track at a time, unless I import the album onto my Mac which defeats the purpose of having an external HD in the first place. I also have this issue with WMP and iTunes but can get VLC player to do this OK. I am not sure if this a Mac issue or a media player issue and hope that the Mac people on the forum can help me.

To play music I go to Drives and Devices/File/Open Media File/Verbatim. I then select the folder I want which is labelled 'Bach'. I then select the subfolder 'E Power Biggs' then select the only folder (which is the album) 'Bach, Great Organ Favourites' and the tracks appear. I select all the tracks and click Open. The first track plays and that's it. Clicking the next track button does nothing and I can see that only one track has been selected. Doubling clicking on the folder doesn't work.

Surely, I must be able to do this or the program is worthless. So is this an MC24 issue or an OSX issue and how do I fix it?
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holden4th

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Re: Playing More Than One Track At a Time from External Devices
« Reply #1 on: October 14, 2018, 03:51:11 am »

BUMP - does anyone know the answer to this problem?
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blgentry

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Re: Playing More Than One Track At a Time from External Devices
« Reply #2 on: October 15, 2018, 01:56:33 pm »

While MC definitely has the feature of using the Drives and Devices section to drill down into your hard drives, I don't think most people use that to play their music.  Some do of course; don't get me wrong.

But I think it's mostly intended to be used by importing your library and then using one of MC's audio views to find your music and play it.  I see that you said:

Quote
This HD is now connected to my iMac and all I can do with MC24 is play one track at a time, unless I import the album onto my Mac which defeats the purpose of having an external HD in the first place.

You might not know this, but "importing" your media into MC does NOT MOVE THE FILES.  Imported files stay on the drives that they were on when you imported them.  So, if you import all the music on your Verbatim HD, all the files will still be on the Verbatim HD.  The "import" process looks at the files, and makes note of all of their properties.  Then you can use MC's views to browse your music in many different ways.

You should probably give that a try as it's a really great way to browse your music and it's mostly how MC is designed to be used.

Brian.
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holden4th

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Re: Playing More Than One Track At a Time from External Devices
« Reply #3 on: October 18, 2018, 03:24:07 am »

Hello Brian

Thank you for giving me this info. Based on this, I opened MC24 and went to File/Library/Import. Clicking on Import gives me three options

Import a single folder
Configure Auto Import
Run Auto Import now

Using the first option, I get to the Verbatim Hard Drive and a list of folders appears one of which is 'Classical Music' a folder I have created which has numerous subfolders. Can I import this and get a drill down system to the other folders? This folder has 103 Gb of data. There is another folder I would also like to import which also has sub menu folders.

Or would auto import be a better option?

The main thing for me is to retain the structure of the folders and files as I set them up on the Verbatim. Your valuable advice would be appreciated.

EDIT: I read the Wiki (I wouldn't have known what to look for before your post) and have now imported the whole of the Classical Music folder via auto import. I have also discovered that I can use the Files tab under AUDIO to access all folders in the way they are set up on my HD. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.
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blgentry

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Re: Playing More Than One Track At a Time from External Devices
« Reply #4 on: October 18, 2018, 12:44:47 pm »

Glad to hear you have found a solution.  :)

Brian.
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holden4th

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Re: Playing More Than One Track At a Time from External Devices
« Reply #5 on: October 19, 2018, 02:24:31 am »

Which leads to another question.

I've just purchased an A&K Junior DAP. Can I now drag and drop files/folders onto my player? I'd probably do it initially via whole albums but the A&K does allow for a file system. I'm not really worried about cover art.
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blgentry

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Re: Playing More Than One Track At a Time from External Devices
« Reply #6 on: October 22, 2018, 01:47:07 pm »

For handheld stuff, you might want to read the wiki entries on it.

However, I can tell you a few things:

1.  I've been told that the A&K players have an unusual access method that is not a regular file system that your computer can mount.  I'm not sure if that's true or not, but that's what I remember hearing.
2.  On the Mac, I've had very hit and miss luck with trying to use MC to directly put files on a DAP (external player) unless it used a regular file system that I could mount.  In most cases what I ended up doing is having MC do a "handheld sync" over to an empty directory on disk.  Then, once it was done, I would use device specific software to copy that directory over to my handheld.  This may or may not apply to your player.

Good luck.

Brian.

PS:  If you need more help with this, you should probably start a new topic with a descriptive subject line so people will look at it.  :)

Brian.
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