AUDIO BOOKS! Help!

[Barbara1955]

I have a 4 gig Sansa Clip & Every time I try to put more than one book on it the Books get Scrambled together UGH! I have tried to put 1 on it then add the next book & they still endup Mixed together! & Even at times a single book will endup mixed up! What am I doing WRONG!! Same thing happens when I put books on a SDcard!

[Rich_D]

More details please. What format are the books in? How are they getting mixed up? Will it switch between books, i.e. Track 1 from book A, Track 2 from book B?

[abookreader]

I don't have a Sansa Clip but I can say I really struggle with metadata on audiobooks, especially books that I've imported from a CD. When the metadata gets mixed up, it often doesn't play smoothly when I put it on a device.

I have a program - MP3tag. I've found it best to look at all the metadata using it first and make sure every file has the exact same album name, author name ... everything. And then I use the tool to renumber all the tracks consecutively rather than by Disc.

[Rich_D]

I suspect that's the problem. I used to go through the same issues when I ripped audio books from CD. It's one of the reasons I went with Audible. The time saved is worth the monthly subscription.

[carpetmojo]

As most people know, I'm definitely not the one to ask about anything technical, (!) but I, in company with a lot of others, admire the little Sansaclip enormously.

It simply does the job in a brilliantly simple, cheap and unobtrusive way....

I've only recently realised I can put audio on it (duh..) and my put audiobooks on a card, d/loaded from disc into Windows Media. I find quite a few of these in Thrift/charity shops. And if you have someone who can turn cassettes into CD , those are cheap as chips ! £1-£2 for 7-odd + hours ain't bad, ad I've got some really good books this way.

It then simply syncs it onto the card.
Oh, it's the 8GB sansaClip+, shouldn't think it maked any difference.

I haven't yet d/loaded direct, but I'll try this weekend if I get a chance.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by Katie1

I have a 4 gig Sansa Clip & Every time I try to put more than one book on it the Books get Scrambled together UGH! I have tried to put 1 on it then add the next book & they still endup Mixed together! & Even at times a single book will endup mixed up! What am I doing WRONG!! Same thing happens when I put books on a SDcard!

Are you just doing a drag & drop with the files, using WMP, using Winamp, using???

Have you tried setting up a playlist for each book?

[AJ Starr]

I'm an extensive audio book listener. I have several, i.e. about 6 or so, mp3 players. I have found that there are three data items that need tending too.

1. The file name.
2. The track name.
3. The track number.

Different devices will use different items to play consecutively. I have also found that on the two "names" that the sorting will only go for the first 6 or 7 characters. Thus: "Harry Potter disk 1 track 1" will be confused with "Harry Potter disk 1 track 2"

So.... The first thing I do is rename the file and track with "001 Harry Potter", etc., and MAKE SURE the tracks are numbered. Sometimes they all get number "1" which confuses the "you know what" out of the systems.

As far as the Sansa Clip, I have one with the microsd card slot. On my notes I keep for all my players, I wrote that the Clip plays by "File name".

Hope this helps.

BTW: I only use MP3's audio books. If you are using DRM'd WPA, I'm not sure this applies.

good luck.

AJ

[silverraven]

My audio books are mp3 audio books. I tag them with mp3tag (free program). I then put each book into it's own folder, names the same as the book. I then drag the whole folder of each book onto my Clip+. On my clip+ I go to music, folders, and all the folders I drug over show up on the list. I choose one, then click 'play all'. It will only play the files in that folder, and play them in order. This also works on the Fuze. I don't know about the original Clip. Let me know if you need more details...
S

[Barbara1955]

You folks gave me great advice & Ideas to try! Thanks!!
I use it for Library audio books mostly in WMA Format [No problem!] My personal collection is MP3s which are the Problem. It not scrambled by Tracks they seem to be scrambled by Disc. Disc 1 of 1 book ends then it will play Last disc of another book!! Kinda confusing! Multi books cause more headaches trying to find Disc 2 of the Org book I trying to listen to!! I use Win Media Player & I rip CDs on my computer with Power2Go programs that came with my HP!

[AJ Starr]

Originally Posted by Katie1

You folks gave me great advice & Ideas to try! Thanks!!
I use it for Library audio books mostly in WMA Format [No problem!] My personal collection is MP3s which are the Problem. It not scrambled by Tracks they seem to be scrambled by Disc. Disc 1 of 1 book ends then it will play Last disc of another book!! Kinda confusing! Multi books cause more headaches trying to find Disc 2 of the Org book I trying to listen to!! I use Win Media Player & I rip CDs on my computer with Power2Go programs that came with my HP!

That's exactly what I ran into until I figured out the "Names" problem. Make sure each file and track name has the number First then the Name. If you still use Disc 1 and Disc 2, then just put a sequential number at the beginning and leave the rest. But make sure every file of a book has that book's title or you will really get fouled up.


001 HP Sorcerer Stone Disc 1 Track 1
002 HP Sorcerer Stone Disc 1 Track 2
...
120 HP Sorcerer Stone Disc 10 Track 5
121 HP Sorcerer Stone Disc 10 Track 6

For my "File Names" I have have a Photo Management program that does "Bulk Renames" on files. I use it for the "file name" redo's.

AJ

[silverraven]

Yeah, it's your personal collection you will have to put into folders according to book. Then you can just select the folder you want to play and it will only play that book. Much easier than trying to make playlists. Or, there are free programs out there that will take all the files of your book and make it one big file. I dont' know how well the clip will handle one big file though. And if you lose your place it is a pain to fast forward through half the book to find your place again.
I don't know how your program rips your CDs, but Audiograbber will rip the CD so that each cd is one track, instead of many little tracks. I got frustrated with some of the new audio books, each CD would have 99 tracks each!! Audiograbber is free, and I will gladly talk you through ripping as one track.
S

[elizilla]

I have a Sansa clip and I listen to audiobooks. And I have struggled with this issue.

The ID3 tags on audiobooks are often complete crap, or just plain missing, which can lead to this type of scrambling. The Clip has a separate folder for audiobooks. If you put the files in there, and they don't have ID3 tags, it will sort them by file and folder. Sometimes this does the trick. If you are ripping an audiobook from CDs, just leave the tags empty and name the files and folders well. It's less work, and more effective, than trying to make the tags work.

The other advantage of using the audiobook folder, is that if you also have music in the music folder, you can set it to play all and shuffle and not get pieces of your audiobooks mixed up in the shuffled music.

[AJ Starr]

I have found that the "audiobook" folder in the mp3 player is only effective for the downloaded audiobooks with the aac (or whatever it is) that Audible.com and others like that use.

If you drag and drop your folders with audio MP3 files, use the Music folder. It works much better.

[elizilla]

I don't have Audible (or iTunes) and I don't have any audio files in my collection that use any format other than MP3, but my stuff does work in the audiobook folder. I have even put a few albums that are "rock opera" in that folder, and some comedy albums, because MP3s of that style don't play well in shuffle with a bunch of three minute pop songs.

I don't know what causes the difference is between my experience and yours. But the original poster might as well try it, at least - they have nothing to lose.

[DianNC]

Originally Posted by Katie1

You folks gave me great advice & Ideas to try! Thanks!!
I use it for Library audio books mostly in WMA Format [No problem!] My personal collection is MP3s which are the Problem. It not scrambled by Tracks they seem to be scrambled by Disc. Disc 1 of 1 book ends then it will play Last disc of another book!! Kinda confusing! Multi books cause more headaches trying to find Disc 2 of the Org book I trying to listen to!! I use Win Media Player & I rip CDs on my computer with Power2Go programs that came with my HP!

Not sure if it will help, but what I do, is once the tracks are ripped (using WMP), I join them using a small, free program I found online (there are lots). I do this for each disc and number them as I go. Once each disc is ripped and joined, I place them all in a folder with the name of the book and transfer the folder.