How to play an entire alumn of music IN ORDER

[Joel Finkel]

What I want to do should be SO SIMPLE. Perhaps that's why I cannot figure out how to do it. Here's the deal:

I have a 4-disk opera that I have ripped to WMA format (MP3 insists on putting silence between tracks, which is unacceptable for classical music and opera).

There is a folder that is named with the name of the opera. Within this folder are four sub-folders: Disk 1, Disk 2, Disk 3, Disk4.

The resulting structure is simple:

Wagner - Die Meistersinger Von N?rnberg (Solti)

Disk 1

Track 01
Track 02
...
​

Disk 2

Track 01
Track 02
...
​

Disk 3

Track 01
Track 02
...
​

Disk 4

Track 01
Track 02
...
Track 14
​

​

I have copied all this to my Lumia 820.

I cannot figure out how to play THE ENTIRE OPERA, starting with Disk 1 - Track 01 and going through Disk 4 - Track 14, IN ORDER, without pause.

So far, the only way things are playing appear to be a random order. I cannot even SELECT a specific track. Do I actually need to create some sort of playlist with 40+ tracks in order??? And, if so, how the heck do I do THAT if I cannot even select a specific track?

Thanks in advance for suggestions.

 

[WavingReds]

Usually it'll play it in order of how it's listed if you don't have shuffle turned on

 

[Joel Finkel]

I changed the folder structure so that it looks like this, thinking that this would treat each disk as an album, and that I could play each album consecutively.

Wagner

Die Meistersinger Von N?rnberg (Solti) Disk 1

Track 01
Track 02
...
​

Die Meistersinger Von N?rnberg (Solti) Disk 2

Track 01
Track 02
...
​

Die Meistersinger Von N?rnberg (Solti) Disk 3

Track 01
Track 02
...
​

Die Meistersinger Von N?rnberg (Solti)Disk 4

Track 01
Track 02
...
Track 14
​

​

The problem is that the Windows Phone 8 music player does not even recognize that these are albums. It tries to play Track 1, Track 1, Track 1, Track 1, then Track 2, Track 2, Track 2, etc. And it starts with Track 1 on Disk 3. Amazing how FUBAR this is.

Furthermore, I see no way to force the music player to REFRESH its list. This is probably why it does not even recognize these as separate albums.

 

[RuleOfSines]

What if you put all the disks/tracks in a single folder, and number the tracks accordingly? It might work, even though it would be a pita to do. And the media player might ignore it anyway and pull whatever is stored in the metadata.

Unfortunately the music player and synchronization is decidedly Mediocre on WP8 at this time.

 

[Emcee]

What if you put all the disks/tracks in a single folder, and number the tracks accordingly? It might work, even though it would be a pita to do. And the media player might ignore it anyway and pull whatever is stored in the metadata.

Unfortunately the music player and synchronization is decidedly Mediocre on WP8 at this time.

To build on this, can you use a program like MP3tag and change each track's metadata to include disk and track info, then put them all in the same folder? Might work.

 

[Joel Finkel]

One would think that this rudimentary functionality would be easily supported.

 

[failed1234]

I have the same problem. One album, but it always shuffles. Can you turn shuffle off?

EDIT: Nvm, I'm dumb. The button is right there.
Sent from my HTC 8x using Board Express

 

[RuleOfSines]

BTW: You should be able to select a specific track. To do so you have to click on the Name of the album from the album view, that should open a list of tracks on the album. If you tap the album itself, it just starts playing. You can do it from the Artists view also, tap the artist name, swipe over to Albums then tab the album name. Just tap all the way to the right, it sometimes seems to select and play the album if you're anywhere near it.

 

[vedichymn]

Yeah, it appears that the music player in Windows Phone 8 doesn't parse/understand the "disc number" tag. I'm pretty sure this wasn't an issue in Windows Phone 7.

 

[Joel Finkel]

It seems that Microsoft engineers do not understand the concept of playing music in the exact order it appears on an album. I say this because dragging a group of files onto the Windows Media Player's playlist panel also results in mixed up tracks. The last three tracks are ALWAYS placed on top of the list and need to be re-ordered back into their correct place.

At least the WMP is clever enough to play these tracks without any pause.

Now to get this functionality on my new Windows Phone 8.

 

[Daniel Ratcliffe]

Try playing just the first album. Then go back, long press the second album and tap add to now playing. Then do the same as the 2nd with the 3rd and 4th albums. Then you can save as a playlist from the Now Playing page. I've had to do this with my Miss Fd albums. Make sure Shuffle is off though.

 

[T Moore]

Start by creating and naming a playlist on the phone with just the first song. Then use windows explorer.
Connect the phone via USB to the PC.

With windows explorer open the music, playlist folder.

Right click the playlist file, select properties, resources tab.

You can, add to the playlist from songs on your phone using drag and drop into the resources tab window.

From the recources tab window you can also delete files from the playlist and set the play order

 

[aubreyq]

Yet ANOTHER problem with WP8? Ugh!

 

[Bicpug]

The windows phone 8 music player is pretty much a total POS; watch or listen to anything in any other app and it will lose its position. Microsoft need to sort it out, my old iphone might have needed videos etc converted to work but it remembered what i was watching or listening to in each app.

 

[Napalm Frog]

I had this problem with some of my multi-albums, but I found the following format to work great (and I honestly like one one dedicated folder for the album)

[2013] - Album Name

1-01 FirstAlbumFirstTrack
1-02 FirstAlbumSecondTrack
2-01 SecondAlbumFirstTrack
2-02 SecondAlbumSecondTrack​

 

[polomint]

To hijack this thread kindof..... Does anyone have any recommendations for other music players which are worth using? At least until these niggles are fixed.

 

[IlyaRomanenko]

i've got the same problem !

-- For those who suggest to rename files - this does not help, as files with tags will be sorted according to disk - track information, do not suggest us to make our music library a crap.

THIS PROBLEM IS A CLEAR BUG IN A PLAYER AND MUST BE FIXED.

-- Please accept some people have thousands of albums in their collection with carefully edited information.

 

[IlyaRomanenko]

[TIP]I had this problem with some of my multi-albums, but I found the following format to work great (and I honestly like one one dedicated folder for the album)

[2013] - Album Name
1-01 FirstAlbumFirstTrack
1-02 FirstAlbumSecondTrack
2-01 SecondAlbumFirstTrack
2-02 SecondAlbumSecondTrack[/TIP]

This only works if there is no disk/track information inside files. In a proper music library information about Track artist, Album Artist, Year, track name, disk number, track number, composer... and so on... embedded into the file. If proper music files are received, let say from HDtracks or itines, they will heve disk number field 1, 2, 3, 4, and track number 1, 2,3 ,4 5, so this pos player will srew it up, no matter if file names as you suggested or not.

 

[freemind]

I would suggest to make a playlist! Make it in your PC, than sync with your phone. Easy

 

[Huime]

definitely a tag problem. WP player is one of those dumb setup that only rely on tag without any intelligent to analyst file name. And it handles multi disk library poorly. So the only way to fix it is to drag the music you need to the now playlist and create a playlist, then sync the playlist.