How to setup flash disks to audio use in cars

[carlmart]

I have been looking on the web on how to proceed, if there's a generic procedure, to setup flash disks correctly to use with car radios.

My first try has been using a 32GB disk, formatted as FAT32, where I put several folders, some with subfolders, where the FLAC music files were. Of course I did check that FLAC was an accepted format, and all in 16/44 format. None was recognized by the Pioneer radio.

I'm resisting to use MP3, because it would take a lot of work to convert the files, one by one, to MP3.

Today I'm going to try putting 3 types of files, with no folders, on the disk. Will try MP3, FLAC and WAV and see what happens. Then I will add a folder and see what happens, and so on.

Does anyone have any advice or recommendation on how to proceed?

[Cornucopia]

Filesystem - fat32, exfat, ntfs...
Filetype - wav, flac, mp3, aac...
Folders/no folders, etc...

Is all dependent on the player, aka the model unit in the car, which capability varies a lot by manufacturer and model year. Plus, there's the aftermarket possibilities.

To do it right, you must follow the owners manual instructions. And for compatibility, I strongly recommend you format your storage using the builtin player (if at all possible) rather than your computer. Then add the files into the appropriate folder structure using the computer.


Scott

[sum_guy]

Most car audio players won't recognize files in sub-folders. All files have to be in the root directory of the drive. My BMW and Chevrolet both work with FAT32 and MP3 files.

[Cornucopia]

I would not say "most".

My 2016 Hyundai Elantra (a pretty basic car) has no trouble with folders and in fact has stock control buttons for traversing and for sorting folders.

Best to start with mfr recommendations and then test for variations.


Scott

[Richard_G]

Only problem I have found with using sub folders (one folder per album) is that certain players play track 1 in each folder, then track 2 in each folder and so on. On others, if you select random play they will only play the folder they are in at the time. As said, it depends entirely on the player.

[pcspeak]

A flac to mp3 batch file I scribbled some time ago.
It will/should recurse through all sub folders.
Highest possible quality. (Don't let your computer go to sleep.)

I get lame from here. (pick yours. x32 or x64)
https://www.rarewares.org/files/mp3/lame3.100-libsndfile.zip
https://www.rarewares.org/files/mp3/lame3.100-libsndfile-64.zip
You need a bundle with libsndfile-1.dll included.

@echo off
title "flac2mp3"
FOR /R %%a IN ("*.flac") do if not exist "%%~dpna.mp3" lame.exe -q 0 --cbr -b 320 "%%a" "%%~dpna.mp3"
pause

Cheers