What is the best combination of Player and Ipod (5thG) & Rockbox

[GodEater]

If syncing using some arbitrary PC side application is a must have for you, you need to find one which you can override the default behaviour for iPods with. I personally don't use such a feature, but I know of several PC-side applications which can do this.

There is an (unoffical) plugin for iTunes which will allow it to sync to a "non iPod" device (which is effectively what you want, even though your device really is an iPod).

I've no idea if this is possible with Winamp - you'd have to ask people that use / develop it. Questions about it here are both irrelevant, and off topic for these forums.

If you use Linux, then Amarok has nice Rockbox player integration too - it can sync in both normal iPod mode, and in a Rockbox friendly file layout mode too - it's up to the user to configure it how they want.

I'm presuming the same thing is possible with MediaMonkey / foobar2000 / <insert-other-app-here> on windows as well - but again - this isn't the right place to ask.

[vsl2005]

It is possible to override the default Ipod mode in MM. You have to do so by going to Tools>Options>Portable/Audio Devices then untick the ipod.dll plug-in. Then click on the d_USBmass1.dll plugin and click on configure. You can then tell it to manually locate the Ipod. Then it will appear as a standard USB portable audio device.

You then need to configure the device to sync your files correctly. The key is to set up your music files in a uniform database structure. First I create a playlist, then sync the playlist to the ipod. My database structure is \\music\<artist>\<year> - <album>\<track#> - <track>.

You can find out more about syncing Rockbox'd ipods using MM on their forum by doing an appropriate search.

I hope I explained this correctly. I learned this from long hours of forum searching, experimenting, erasing and re-syncing. But it works flawlessly now. I've got over 350 playlists sorted all different ways: by album, artist, genre, mood, you name it. I run Rockbox on a 80GB  Ipod 5.5G.

Honestly, I won't buy another DMP unless it's Rockbox compatible. The Ipod 5.5G seems to be the largest capacity player currently available. I'd love to hear from anyone who has a better DMP in terms of capacity and compatibility.

Cheers!

[astro2]

I don't know why you want to boost the volume for certain mp3s.  Is it because they are quieter than the others?  If that's the issue then you can look into applying replaygain to your files to normalize the apparent volume between albums (or between tracks).

You can't do video out in Rockbox because we don't know how to use the Broadcom chip.  You're better off doing this with Apple's firmware.

yeah thats the problem with mp3s if you don't rip them yourself, they are different quality, some you don't care but its just the volume is ultra high or ultra low, i typically use itunes (ironically after whining about how dumb ipods and itunes are, lol)  thanks for the normalising program i'll look into it, i'm guessing this will tag a group of mp3s to make them play a specific volume and not recode them, i'm a noob in comps but im guessing that'd reduce the quality

What do you mean by that?

You have to navigate to the song you want to listen to with any type of music player. Rockbox gives you the choice of browsing by directory/folder (Files...) or by tags (Database...).

tru tru, but i guess after hating itunes so much i got use to just jumping on a specific playlist i want, drag'n drop is fine but at least on a psp console by jumping into the music option it blocks out irrelevant non-music files....rockbox (unless you don't use files option) can be a little annoying in the car if you have to search the song folder maybe located at the bottom then choose a specific song folder just to get what you want.....*ahem*...however i'm thinking of transfering ipod playlist to m3u then put into rockbox, but the program i d/led only finds '90 music' and 'music' playlist and none of the playlist on my actual ipod itself, which pop up when i plug in with itunes

[Llorean]

i'm a noob in comps but im guessing that'd reduce the quality

Interestingly enough, no. Replaygain doesn't modify the original sound data, so all the detail is preserved. There's no more quality lost than you lose from turning the volume up or down.

Basically, what you do is scan a song, and it says "this song is about 2.7281737 lower than the default level" so if you pick a volume of -21 it adds increases the volume by ~2.7. Basically, what this means is that all your songs sound about the same loudness as "-21" rather than each one sounding different loudnesses, because it tweaks the volume up and down behind the scenes for you so that "-21" is the same for every song.

It also has a mode where it treats all the songs in an album as one song, so that the each album lands at the same level, but if one song is supposed to be quieter than the rest of the album, it'll still come up quieter.

"Tru" and "d/led" are not English words. Please respect our forum guidelines.

It's really easy to just see Music files in Rockbox. Either put your music in one folder, called Music (and any folders you want under it) or set the "File View" option to "Music" so it hides all non-Music files.

[astro2]

i'm a noob in comps but im guessing that'd reduce the quality

Interestingly enough, no. Replaygain doesn't modify the original sound data, so all the detail is preserved. There's no more quality lost than you lose from turning the volume up or down.

Basically, what you do is scan a song, and it says "this song is about 2.7281737 lower than the default level" so if you pick a volume of -21 it adds increases the volume by ~2.7. Basically, what this means is that all your songs sound about the same loudness as "-21" rather than each one sounding different loudnesses, because it tweaks the volume up and down behind the scenes for you so that "-21" is the same for every song.

It also has a mode where it treats all the songs in an album as one song, so that the each album lands at the same level, but if one song is supposed to be quieter than the rest of the album, it'll still come up quieter.

"Tru" and "d/led" are not English words. Please respect our forum guidelines.

It's really easy to just see Music files in Rockbox. Either put your music in one folder, called Music (and any folders you want under it) or set the "File View" option to "Music" so it hides all non-Music files.

thankyou for your reply, yes seeing music files on rockbox is easy, my point was, using your example label it as 'music' well M would be down below, so i guess i'd have to clean up folders just so i can have the folder above or higher. Also If you ever saw my 'playlist' it is broken into different groups and thats what i'd like

so tips on making ipod playlist to m3u would be nice, i tried a program as i stated but it will only sense two folders '90s music' and 'music' playlist...

p.s rules hey?, i get introuble for a site once for just being playful, not rude not swearing and now i'm in trouble for using shortcut words, funny.  Tru= true  d/led is =downloaded

[soap]

p.s rules hey?, i get introuble for a site once for just being playful, not rude not swearing and now i'm in trouble for using shortcut words, funny.  Tru= true  d/led is =downloaded

You agreed to the forum guidelines when you signed up.  There are many non-native English speakers here and also many blind users of these forums.  Your shortcuts and misspelled words can be problematic for both groups.

[Chronon]

so tips on making ipod playlist to m3u would be nice, i tried a program as i stated but it will only sense two folders '90s music' and 'music' playlist...

Maybe you could use a program that supports standard .m3u playlists.  That seems like the easiest solution to me.

[Touelmeris]

From what I have been able to see using your precious advice, and to this respect GodEater's, it is indeed essential to declare the Ipod as a generic MP3 player to Winamp otherwise the files will be renammed in the stupid apple way AND winamp will convert all formats to what the Ipod firmware can read, which is partly ruining the interest of using Rockbox. Thank your also VSL2005 for your detailled advice on MediaMonkey which I will also test. If I can do this soon enough I will report here.
Thanks again,
Touelmeris

[Touelmeris]

Hi,
Just to catch up on this. I now do not use any software to move music into my Ipod. As it was flagged, there is not point. Unless you are a fan of some software (whether audio monkey, winamp or others), it is much easier to just drag and drop music and navigate through the folders. It also save you the pain of having a consistent tagging system, and wonder what sort of "genre" you gave to this or that.
I use Opus Directory to synchronize the music folder from my pc and this is it. Easier, faster.
And I love Rockbox. I would just wish the cover were easier to have (jpg support) and the themes were better.
Thanks,
Vlad

[Elias_Maluco]

Yeah, thats what I do. I just use total commander to throw my files directlly on the device. I never liked having to use a specific application to be able to feed my mp3 player and thats the first reason which made me start using rockbox after I got an iPod.

And to play music in my computer, FooBar: the best player ever.

[TexasRockbox]

I use Microsoft Sync Toy 2.0 to sync devices.  A bit of learning curve for configuration but it works great, it's fast and it's completely free.