Thumb Drives in Cars

[Benzowner]

Hi all, need some help. My car has a USB port to play audio through, but it only plays MP3 as far as I know. I transferred my music library to the flash dive but although all the files were on the drive it would not play on the audio system in the car. On further investigation I found that most of the files were MP3 but a largish chunk were Apple 4 Audio. So I went onto my music player which has a file converter and tried that. Clicked onto the MP3 but alas, it converted the files to mpeg which I cannot load onto the thumb drive. So now I am stuck, I have about 1400 music tracks that will not load onto the flash drive and the ones that do, approx 50 load on as MP3 tracks. So how best to convert mpeg to mp3 for the 1400 tracks. I have reformatted the flash drive to all allowable on a mac, FAT32, exfat etc any suggestions please.

 

[IWT]

I have 2 articles which are, in effect, tutorials on how to get music playing in a car via USB.

Worth a read through, I think.

How to Listen to Music in a Car From a USB Flash Drive

Listening to music in a car from a USB drive is easy if your head unit is already capable of playing digital music files, but it isn't required.

www.lifewire.com

How to Organize Music on USB for Car Stereo Systems (Guide)

Find out how to organize music on a USB for car stereo systems. Learn best practices and the quickest way to organize your music for vehicle playback!

stereoupgrade.com

Ian

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Let's first start with the basics. What is the file format of the original audio tracks before you did any sort of conversion with the "music player". Speaking of which, what "music player"??

If the original audio is AAC, FLAC, MP3, WAV and/or other audio format, we'll need to know so that we can provide the best way to convert all of files to MP3 for use in your car.

 

[Benzowner]

Let's first start with the basics. What is the file format of the original audio tracks before you did any sort of conversion with the "music player". Speaking of which, what "music player"??

If the original audio is AAC, FLAC, MP3, WAV and/or other audio format, we'll need to know so that we can provide the best way to convert all of files to MP3 for use in your car.

As I said in my original post, most were MP3 but a number were Apple 4 audio. All but about 15 tracks were recorded to the Mac Music via my CD and originally were all MP3. However a crash with the old hard drive I installed a 500gb Crucial SSD and rerecorded from the CDs. One album, Physical Graffiti, I could put the whole album on the flash drive, but only the first track would play although all the tracks were on the flash drive. That is when I tried to convert all the tracks to MP3 using the Mac Music converter which has an MP3 converter. But it actually converted 50 random tracks to MP3 and the rest to Mpeg audio file, that is why I am stuck.

 

[Benzowner]

I believe mpeg audio superseded MP3(?) not sure, but I cannot load it onto the flash drive

 

[Lifeisabeach]

As I said in my original post, most were MP3 but a number were Apple 4 audio. All but about 15 tracks were recorded to the Mac Music via my CD and originally were all MP3. However a crash with the old hard drive I installed a 500gb Crucial SSD and rerecorded from the CDs. One album, Physical Graffiti, I could put the whole album on the flash drive, but only the first track would play although all the tracks were on the flash drive. That is when I tried to convert all the tracks to MP3 using the Mac Music converter which has an MP3 converter. But it actually converted 50 random tracks to MP3 and the rest to Mpeg audio file, that is why I am stuck.

We need to know what music player you are using in your car. By that, assuming you are using the car's factory head unit, then we'd need to know what model car you have so we can investigate a bit.

Offhand, if the USB drive is formatted as FAT32 and the files are in mp3 format, then they "should" be working. That's the most common and compatible combination of formats.

You mention using a music player to convert the music. What player is that?

 

[Rod]

I think Lifeisabeach has summed it up in, "Offhand, if the USB drive is formatted as FAT32 and the files are in mp3 format, then they "should" be working. That's the most common and compatible combination of formats."

The thumb drive can be reformatted using the native Disk Utility on your Mac. Just choose erase and pick a name and format from the drop down menus.

As for the music you said that you have already found some Apple m4p files and they most likely will not play.
You will need to convert them to MP3. A simple free converter I have used is MediaHuman Audio Converter available free here; Download MediaHuman Products
You just drag the track to the app and pick the destination (your thumb drive).

 

[Benzowner]

The music player I use is the one that comes with the Mac. I am running Catalina 10.15.7, it's a 2013 Mac so cannot upgrade further. The car radio is a Nissan Qashqai Connect.

The original problem I had was that the car via the thumb drive would not play any tracks recorded in Apple 4 Audio although it would play one track per album usually the first and not the rest recorded in that format. The music player, under File, has a converter which says it converts to MP3 but it didn't it converted to mpeg which is no good at all for my thumb drive, so I now need to convert the whole of my music library to MP3 or I guess I can use my iPhone vis bluetooth.

 

[IWT]

I guess I can use my iPhone vis bluetooth.

I held off responding after my early post because your question was very specific; but now that you've mentioned it yourself, why not use your iPhone and BT-connect to the car audio output.

It's what I do all the time. That way, you can choose any playlist you wish, can use Shuffle to play music randomly and so forth. You are in complete control and the format of your music becomes irrelevant.

I have music from years ago which is in the "lowest" format then available, up to lossless music from today and all sorts in between. If it plays on your iPhone, you can hear it in the car.

(Some would also remind you that phone calls and texts are at your command, but that aspect of things doesn't matter that much to me).

Ian

 

[Lifeisabeach]

The music player I use is the one that comes with the Mac. I am running Catalina 10.15.7, it's a 2013 Mac so cannot upgrade further. The car radio is a Nissan Qashqai Connect.

The original problem I had was that the car via the thumb drive would not play any tracks recorded in Apple 4 Audio although it would play one track per album usually the first and not the rest recorded in that format. The music player, under File, has a converter which says it converts to MP3 but it didn't it converted to mpeg which is no good at all for my thumb drive, so I now need to convert the whole of my music library to MP3 or I guess I can use my iPhone vis bluetooth.

Ok, so if you don't want to use your iPhone via Bluetooth, then use a different app to do the music conversions. X Lossless Decoder is probably the single most robust option, and it's free. Just set the parameters and go.

X Lossless Decoder: Lossless audio decoder for Mac OS X

 

[IWT]

+1 for XLD. Had it for years.

Ian

 

[krs]

I have not read all of this thread, but if all that is required is to convert an audio file to mp3, I always use an application called Switch.
Works great on Mojave which I'm still using.

 

[Rod]

Seems to me you have three options:
You can use any one of the conversion apps suggested to make the tracks you want mp3 and add them to your thumb drive (formatted as FAT32).
You can play from your iPhone via Bluetooth to the car sound system.
And, as your car system has a USB input, connect your iPhone directly via cable which should have the additional benefit of charging your phone.
This last option is the easiest because it does not require "pairing" your iPhone to the car sound system.

here is an article on connecting your sound system to an auxiliary source; How Do I Connect My Phone To My Nissan Qashqai? - NextReleaseUnknown.com

Lastly, just out of curiosity, you mention your computer (you do not say what mac you have) is a 2013 model running macOS Catalina so cannot be upgraded. In most cases a 2013 Mac capable of running Catalina can be updated to Big Sur or Monterey (current) unless it's the 2013 iMac.

 

[Benzowner]

Lastly, just out of curiosity, you mention your computer (you do not say what mac you have) is a 2013 model running macOS Catalina so cannot be upgraded. In most cases a 2013 Mac capable of running Catalina can be updated to Big Sur or Monterey (current) unless it's the 2013 iMac.

Yes it's an iMac 27" late 2013 great piece of kit now outdated according to Apple.

 

[Rod]

Well, if it's any consolation you're not missing out on much. If Catalina is working well for you then it will probably do so for quite a while yet.
Yes, there are a few handy new features in Monterey like Focus that works across devices now but really it's just a better version of Do Not Disturb. A number of other new features only work on the new M1 series Mac's anyway. For example I had been looking forward to Sidecar in Catalina a utility that allows you to mirror your laptop screen on an iPad only to find it was only available on 2016 MBP's onwards. Mine is a 2015 model. Sooner or later we will all be forced to upgrade to Silicon Processor based devices so the longer we can keep our Intel devices running the better.
Monterey (macOS 12.1) may be the last OS to support Intel so we may all find ourselves running outdated software soon. I'm happy to have gotten 7 years out of this MBP and 9 years for your iMac is really very good.