Using Ford Sync For Music

danrclem

Super Member
I'm not completely stuck in the 20th century but a lot of me is still there. I just bought a Ford with sync in it and would like to know the best way or at least a good way to play music through it. My phone doesn't have very many minutes that I can use so that's out.

Would ripping my cd's and downloading them to an MP3 player be good or is there something better without too much expense that I can use. What size MP3 would I need for 1,500 or less songs? The sync guide says that if the source is hooked to the USB port that I can use voice to operate the system. Does this apply to MP3?

Any words of wisdom will be appreciated but please keep it simple 'cause this old geezer doesn't understand all of this new fangled equipment.

Thanks
 
I use a 32 gig flash drive in my Fusion. When you plug a flash drive into one of the USB ports Sync recognizes it and it shows up on the input selection. My only complaints about the Sync system is that to listen to an album the songs need to be numbered ie, 01 #### 02 ##### etc or they won't play in order. And it reads the MP3 tag rather than the file name so if you don't fill in the MP3 tag it displays Unknown Song / Unknown Artist. Hope this helps.
 
Same here. I use a 16Gb USB drive in my 2010 Focus. If you make sure all your MP3s are tagged correctly, you can then play specific tracks and albums just by talking to it. You can say stuff like "Play artist Pink Floyd" or "Play track Breathe". It helps if you albums contain track numbers in the MP3s as well.

I have each album in an individual folder. If you have a folder of various songs, you can either name your album some arbitrary name, or just make a playlist (M3U file) and then you can say "Play playlist Lee's Tracks".

Lee.
 
Thanks guys, that's what I'm looking for. Approximately how many songs would a 32 gig drive hold? After I rip a CD to my computer hard drive is that when I assign them numbers before I transfer them to the flash drive and if so could you explain how I do that? I'll probably still get it wrong but eventually get it right.
 
32gb is enormous for MP3 files. I have ~4500 tunes on a 64 gb thumb drive...most ripped at 320k.

Most of the ripping software will follow the numbering scheme on the CD automatically. Just experiment a bit and you'll figure out what works. You can always delete the files from the thumb drive and start over.

Once you get used to having a thousand tunes in your car you will wonder why your home system doesn't have the same.
 
Use a program like MP3tag to name your files. You can set it to tag files based on their file name. So, if you're smart, when you rip files from CD, give them the file name something like "01 Could It Be Magic - Barry Manilow". Then, the MP3tag software can parse this (automatically) into track#, title, and artist.

As for making an M3U file, don't let any software do it, as it puts a bunch of other crap in there you don't need. Just make a text file that contains a list of file names, save it, and then rename the extension to .M3U. Something like :

01 Could It Be Magic - Barry Manilow.mp3
02 Paranoid - Black Sabbath.mp3
03 Pick Up The Pieces - Average White Band.mp3
.
.
etc.

Lee.
 
If you rip a CD directly to MP3 or FLAC most ripping programs will automatically attach the metadata tags. Track numbers are included as part of the metadata. If you rip to wav it's up to you to manually tag all the files when you convert them to MP3. When converting from FLAC to MP3 the tags are already there.
 
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You can use Windows Media Player to rip your CDs.
Create a folder on your computer to rip to. Then point to it where it says Rip music to this location.
Select MP3 as format and slide bar to best quality (320 Kbps).
If you are connected to the internet it will tag automatically.

Once you are done copy the files to the device you use in your car.

Maintain a separate folder (different from rip folder) on your computer to keep all the files - a library.
Keep this backed up just in case.

As mentioned 32 GB will hold plenty of MP3 files.

upload_2017-5-24_5-22-41.png
 
Thanks rwartner. I think that explains it to where even I understand it. I just bought a new computer a couple weeks ago and haven't ripped anything with it yet. It has windows 10 so I'm assuming that I'll be good to go on that end. Do I need a separate folder for each genre or will sync automatically recognize it.

I just ordered a Sandisk 32gb Cruzer Fit and as soon as that comes in I'll be able to get some tunes in the truck. I'd better get started ripping though.
 
When you start a rip it should find the CD info. For instance the album art. If not then check these settings.
You should go through each tab to make sure everything looks right.

upload_2017-5-25_6-47-51.png
 
This is what my rip to folder looks like. It will make a folder for each artist.
I then copy each artist to a backup external USB drive that has the entire library.

I would then copy each artist to your Sandisk or whatever device is used to play from.

On your Sandisk I would create a main folder (it can be named anything you like). Then copy each artist underneath.

Like this.

\MusicLibrary
\BlueCheer
\Bruce Springsteen

All the tracks will have TAG information that was retrieved from internet during ripping.
This includes genre. So that is automatic.
Your music player should recognize the tags and be able to sort by genre etc.
I just tell the player to play randomly.

Rip a few, copy and play around.

Rip folder on my computer:

upload_2017-5-25_6-51-26.png
 
Thanks rwartner. I'll rip some, download it to the flash drive and then check it out just to make sure I'm doing things right. :thumbsup:

I'll need lotsa songs for my trip to Alaska next year.
 
I downloaded a few albums and for the most part all went well when playing using the flash drive connected to SYNC. I didn't realize that Animals and Clapton were classified as blues so when I searched for rock nothing came up. One other thing is that when I played one track using SYNC it stuttered like I have sometimes heard on a CD player. I have burned this same album to CD and all worked well so would the problem be with my SYNC player, flash drive or the computer ripping process. On this same CD the computer wouldn't rip one track for some reason but it's one I didn't care a lot about anyway.
 
I've used my SYNC USB input once with a flash drive and it worked great. As long as all your tracks are tagged, it should work well.

I don't use it with my iPod because I have about 25,000 songs on it and it would take forever for the system to read them all (at least it would in my car which is a 2009). Using the line in is much easier for me, especially since I use pre-made playlists anyway.
 
Have about 400 albums on a 64Gb thumb drive plugged into Sync in my Escape (Kuga here in NZ). Occasionally I get told voice commands are deactivated due to the number of songs and sometimes it forgets where it was up to last time I used it.
In three years I have had to let re-index drive a few times.
So not entirely reliable; but mostly works ok.
 
Recently copied LPs to digital, approximately 1500 tracks takes 55 GB. This is uncompressed, CD Red Book format. Also, some of those tracks are classical works, longer than the typical 3 minute song. A 64 GB or even a 32 GB with MP3 or MP4 compressed will hold more than you need for anything less than a cross country trip.
 
I don't know whats with my SYNC system but I had to shut the car off and restart it before the USB drive would recognize and play the USB drive.
Thank You to everyone who provided info on how to put music on a thumb drive. Greg
 
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