DavidZ

I loaded about 20 CDs in FLAC format onto a USB stick to play in my car. When I call these albums up on the Center Display the track order is seemingly random. How can I get the Center Display to show (and play) the tracks in the same order as they appear on the CD?

mikemu30

Is it set to shuffle? I recall three options when playing the usb - shuffle among albums, shuffle within album and no shuffle meaning play in order. Perhaps that controls how they display.

DavidZ

Actually, the songs are in alphabetical order. Is there any way to get them to play in track number order?

Angelix

I think the sorting based on the song name rather than the track no.
This also annoys me a lot. You can rename your song starts with a number maybe "disc number - track number", then the ordering should work.

I am still trying to make the playlist function work that could address this issue.

DavidZ

There's a CD on my USB stick with track numbers as prefixes in the track name field. I didn't do anything special to put these prefixes in the metadata, they just ripped that way. The Lexus system arranges these 11 tracks as follows.

11
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
09
10

WTF? So, even if I went through all the effort to put track numbers as prefixes in the track name field of all these CDs, the Lexus system STILL won't play them in the proper order?!

When an artist puts together a CD album they take a lot of care choosing the order of the tracks. It's part of the artistry of the album compilation. The tracks should be played in the order intended by the artist!

Think about playing Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band. The Lexus would play the album tracks in alpha order . That sucks!

markp1798

What I am seeing is that it does not matter if the songs are in FLAC format, M4A, or MP3, etc. If you browse the songs on the USB by Album, Artist or Songs the songs simply will play in Alphabetical order. So the Mark Levinson system is not honoring the track number tag in the actual files. However, if you browse the USB by Folder the songs don't play in Alphabetical order. For example on one album that has 13 songs it begins playback on song 08 then plays sequentially in correct order through song 13 then moves to song 01 and plays through song 07 to complete all 13 songs. Some folders with complete albums may start on song 06 or 07 so it is pretty random. I believe what is happening here is the songs are playing in the order they were actually copied to the USB. When you copy an entire folder of songs from your computer to the USB they don't normally record in the same order as they appear in File Explorer. They copy in some random order and so playback is in that order. However as stated earlier in my post browsing by Album, Artist or Songs will always list the songs in alphabetical order. It is sad that this very expensive system does not honor the tags on the files which contain tack numbers and at least give us the option to play the songs in track order. We should be able to listen to the albums in the order the artist recorded them.

PanchoB

For future PO'd users, here's another thread discussing the same massively annoying and stupid oversight on this topic: https://www.clublexus.com/forums/es-...l#post10617033

NCGator25

All, I was struggling with this issue on my ES and my Jeep that has a Pioneer NEX head unit. In my searching, I found the solution below on one of the pioneer forums. I've completed the process and it works.


Here's the solution:
The problem is, as previously stated, the head unit sorts the files according to the order in which they were copied to the card. What seems to be the simplest solution is to put the track number at the beginning of the filename so when you copy the files to the SD card, they get copied in order. The problem is that Windows (and I assume other operating systems as well) treats the filename as an alphabetic listing and not as a numerical one. This is why this occurs: When the files are copied to the SD, Windows copies them in the default sort order. So to fix this, you ultimately have to manipulate the way Windows sorts the files then copy them fresh so that they get copied onto the SD in the desired order. Here is how I did it, using Windows. This seems like a really long process, but once you get the hang of it, it's pretty easy to do. We are going to use a freeware utility called MP3Tag that makes the job MUCH easier than doing it by hand.

Part 1: Copy your SD Card to your computer so you can work with it.

1. Pull your SD Card out of the head unit and insert it into your computer.

2. Create a folder on your desktop.

3. Copy the entire contents of your SD Card to that folder.

4. Open the new folder and look for a subfolder called 'data.' Delete it if it exists. This folder contains the database your head unit created, and since we want the database to be re-built by the head unit after the card is reinstalled in the vehicle, you want to delete it now.

5. Make any changes to the folder structure you like. I set up mine as ARTIST \ ALBUM \ MP3FILE. This worked for me, I have not experimented with other layouts.

Part 2: Set up MP3Tag and make sure you have tracks set right.

1. Download a utility called mp3tag. It's an indispensable utility when you work with lots of MP3 files. It works with FLAC files too.

2. Open MP3Tag and drag the entire folder from your desktop into MP3Tag so all of your songs appear on the list.

3. Go through the TRACK column and make sure all of your files have tracks set up. If not, set them up. This track number will dictate what order the music plays in when all is said and done. So if you have a "variety" folder that has different songs from different albums or artists, then you'll want to set the track order according to what order you want the songs to play.

4. At a minimum, make sure that the ARTIST and TITLE field are set for every file in addition to the track number.

Note: One trick is that MP3Tag supports nested sorting. I suggest clicking the TRACK column header to sort by track, then the PATH header to sort by your folder structure. That makes it easier to see the song order, since the head unit will play by folder then by track.

Part 4: Set up MP3Tag to perform the Track Reformatting.

1. A special action has to be defined in MP3Tag to perform this operation. Click the Actions menu at the top of the window, then select ACTIONS.

2. Click the "New" button along the right side of the "Action Groups" window that appears. It has a little "yellow star" on it.

3. Give the action a name, such as "Format Track Numbers" and click OK.

4. Click the "New" button along the right side of the "Actions" window that appears. Select "Format Value" from the list and click OK.

5. In the "Format Value" window:

a. In the "Field" box, type TRACK.

b. In the Format String" box, cut and paste this text:

[$num(%track%,3)]

6. The track numbers MUST have 3 digits, so in the sequence above, it must have the number 3 entered. Two digits will not work!

7. Click OK, OK, Close.

Note: MP3tag saves this configuration. So if you need to do this again in the future, you will already have this part taken care of.

Part 5: Perform the Track Reformatting.

1. Highlight (select) all of your files by pressing CTRL+A in MP3Tag. All lines will highlight.

2. Click ACTIONS and select the action name you just created.

3. MP3Tag will work for a bit. When it's finished, all of your track numbers should be exactly 3 numbers long. 001, 002, 010, 015, etc.

Part 6: Place the track numbers into the filename.

1. With all lines still highlighted (Selected), click the "Convert" menu and select "Tag - Filename."

2. In the Format String field, paste this text:

%Track%-%artist%-%title%

and click "OK."

3. MP3Tag will work for a bit, when done, all of your filenames should begin with the three digit track number.

Note: The format string can be customized if you are feeling adventurous. It's beyond the scope of what we're trying to get done here so your mileage may vary if you plan to tinker with it. The key is that the track number must be 3 digits long and it must be at the beginning of the filename.

Part 7: Validate.

Go back to your folder in Windows Explorer. Look through your folders and make sure you are happy with how everything looks. If not, make any changes manually or use MP3Tag.

Part 8: Redo your SD Card.

1. Open the SD Card in Windows Explorer, and delete everything from the card. Formatting it is even better, but as long as everything is deleted, it's fine.

2. Copy the entire contents of the working folder you created on your desktop to the SD card in one shot. Windows will copy them in track order, populating the card properly.

Enjoy. Pop the SD card back into your head unit, and everything should play in perfect order.



Also, as I was learning how to use MP3Tag, I found the following two pages helpful:

Insert Track Number into File Name - https://community.mp3tag.de/t/insert...to-title/11486

How to Remove Track Number from File Name - https://community.mp3tag.de/t/how-to...e-title/9639/5

The instructions found on these two links can be used for any of the tag columns.

Hope this helps!

NCGator25

BTW, here's a screen shot of one of my albums from the MP3Tag utility. I made sure the track, title, and file names all had 3 digit numbers.

LexFinally

NCGator25, thank you again for these incredibly helpful instructions. I tried this today and it went with only one hitch: turns out the latest version of MP3Tag has consolidated the track numbering step into a wizard. So I briefly had a heart stoppage when I got to creating an action in Step 4, but then found to my relief that I didn't need to.

DavidZ

I went through this whole process when I got my ES in 2019. However, my USB with over 1,000 tracks in HD/CD quality (.wav) format now sits in my glove box. With CarPlay and an iPhone, I use Amazon HD music, which delivers Ultra HD quality. My Amazon HD Music collection is 690 tracks and I'm adding new tracks all the time.

LexFinally

I cannot personally feel comfortable giving money to that company, but I'm happy for you that you've found a solution you like.

DavidZ

There are other companies that offer the same sound quality with a similar selection of tracks- Apple, Tidal, etc.

LexFinally

Good to know. Thanks for sharing that.