Home Forums Peripherals & Multimedia iTunes, iPhone, iPod, iPad, Apple TV playing itunes in preferred order

OS 10.6.8 Alpine MPS/WMA/AM/FM CD receiver. Model 9886. I recently acquired
an adapter that allows me to hook up a flash card with a ton of itunes. I thought that they would play in the order I preferred. I took the card out and rearranged the tunes thinking they would play in the order they had been put in. So I wrote down the first 24 tunes and when I connected my USB cable, not one of the first 24 were played out of the first 10 played. Does anyone know how I can arrange the tunes so they play in the order I select? I have tried the 'arrange' by but to no avail. jaybass

Take a look at the Alpine site for this model.

What you want to do seems possible. Here is what they described:

"Tons of music? Find it fast! With Alpine's exclusive QuickSearch technology, you'll be able to find what you want, the quickest and easiest way possible. With so many ways to listen to thousands of songs, now you can get super-fast access to artists, songs, albums, playlists, and radio stations. Large control buttons and a rotary encoder make it easy to scroll through all your sources, including your iPod, Radio stations and CD's. No interruptions, while you search, just let the Alpine play. Percentage Search For especially big music libraries, Percentage Search function uses the preset buttons for quick jumps to specific parts of the list. Save yourself from scrolling through each song one by one, when you can just jump to a segment of your library with a touch of a button."

Not being able to see the actual hardware, dials, knobs, etc. I can't tell you what to do, but they sure talk a good talk (see above ).

What program are you using to play them?

When you say a "ton of iTunes" I assume you mean a ton of MP3 files?

I am using a 16Gb USB flash drive on which I put about 1100 mp3s, lots of room left. I have arranged them by 'kind' and so far the first 13 history files are playing in order but until I get past them, (about 80 minutes) I won't know if the others will follow suit.
I'm not sure what you mean by program. They are only for the car. jaybass.

Ira, I'll get back to you. I have to go out just now. jaybass

Ira, I don't have any options so I don't get all those features you mentioned. I guess I would need "quicksearch" for that. I am quite happy with what I have.
Thanks for answering. jaybass

As I said in my last post, those history files played in sequence but after that, the songs were clumped together by artists. Example, Matt Monroe's songs all followed one after the other as did the other artists. This was after I removed the USB from the radio and rearranged them. I cannot figure out how the radio can isolate all of one singer's songs together. Is there something I could do when I am rearranging them? I am not too hopeful. BTW, this does not happen with CDs.
jaybass

Most likely, the radio plays them in alphabetical order according to their MP3 information tag, not according to their file name on the disk.

I don't think the radio plays the songs alphabetically because they are all MP3s and I have 'arranged' them the 6 different ways allowed (on my computer) and it makes no difference. I have just found the manual and there is a section relating to ipods which I don't have but the ipod uses the USB connection at the rear of the radio. I use a cable with a USB on both ends, (1) male & (1) female and according to the manual, the songs on the USB flash drive can be arranged to play the songs randomly by pressing the right buttons. All I have to do now is get into my car and see what I can do. I will post the results. Maybe some else has an alpine 9886
jaybass

I have made the necessary adjustment to my radio and now all songs will play randomly. jaybass

Arranging the files the way your computer allows doesn't have anything to do with the way the radio sees them.

I suspect it plays them alphabetically by MP3 tag. The MP3 tag is not the file name. You can't see the MP3 tag if you're looking at the files on your computer in the Finder; you have to use a special program to see the MP3 tags.

Basically, every MP3 has special built-in "tags" that list the artist, album, track name, genre, and so on. Changing the name of the FILE does not change the TAG.