SOLVED: USB Audio Track Sorting Issue - Album View

[ArthurDOB]

Disclaimer: If you are a professional computer person, you probably already know how this works. I'm not a professional computer person, but I thought that if I'm having this issue, others may be as well, so I thought I'd post my solution even if it only helps a handful of others
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I love music, and prefer to listen to my own music collection most of the time. I choose not to be beholden to some streaming service that could take away music I like at any moment, or that has some of what I like but is also missing other things I consider essential. I have between 30,000 and 35,000 tracks digitized from CD, Vinyl, and Tape, and I want to have the ability to play them all in my car.

Other than SYNC's interminable "indexing" of the USB (that's another thread entirely!), the only problem I've experienced in listening this way is when I choose to sort my music by "Album." The songs on some albums' tracks will display on SYNC in the correct order while other albums will display tracks in a seemingly random order, or most songs will be in the proper order, but a few stragglers will be out of order, appearing at seemingly random places on the list of tracks, an annoyance at least, but a disaster for albums where one track flows into the next.

My first solution was to make playlists of the offending albums, but that became too burdensome. After much frustration, I finally found a solution to this sorting problem.

The Problem:

Here's an example of what was happening:
This example is from the 5-disc All Things Must Pass Super Deluxe set by George Harrison. Each file is numbered first by the disc it is on, then by track number, and the metadata has each listed as Track 1 on each disc, i.e.,

1-01 - I'd Have You Anytime Metadata track number: 1
2-01 - Beware Of Darkness Metadata track number: 1
3-01 - All Things Must Pass (Demo) Metadata track number: 1
4-01 - Run Of The Mill (Demo) Metadata track number: 1
5-01 - Isn't It A Pity_ (Take 14) Metadata track number: 1
Note: The "Metadata track number x" is not included in the file name. It is how the track is numbered in the metadata. This will be the case for all further examples.

In the "Album" sorting view, they will display in this order as the first five tracks on the list of 70 tracks:
3-01 - All Things Must Pass (Demo) Metadata track number: 1
2-01 - Beware Of Darkness Metadata track number: 1
1-01 - I'd Have You Anytime Metadata track number: 1
5-01 - Isn't It A Pity_ (Take 14) Metadata track number: 1
4-01 - Run Of The Mill (Demo) Metadata track number: 1

Sync is taking the first track and displaying them in alphabetical, not numerical order. In the file name, it seems to ignore anything before the zero in the track number.

Then in the same way, it will display all the Track 02s in alphabetical order, then all the 03s, the 04s, etc. Very annoying!

As I mentioned above, many single-disc albums with fewer tracks do display tracks in the correct order. For example, for The Beatles Abbey Road, both the original 1969 mix and 2019 Remix versions display all 17 tracks in the correct order. The former version's files are numbered this way:

01 - Come Together Metadata track number: 1
02 - Something Metadata track number: 2
etc.,
17 - Her Majesty Metadata track number: 17

and the latter version's tracks are numbered this way:

1-01 - Come Together (2019 Remix) Metadata track number: 1
1-02 - Something (2019 Remix) Metadata track number: 2
etc.,
1-17 - Her Majesty (2019 Remix) Metadata track number: 17

The strange thing is, if some albums have a large number of tracks, let's say 70 for example, and they are numbered "01 - Track 1" to "70 - Track 70," it will also display out of order in the Album sorting view. So, how does one go about fixing this?

The Solution:

For a multi-disc album like All Things Must Pass, I changed the file name track numbers and metadata numbers from this:

1-01 - I'd Have You Anytime Metadata track number: 1
2-01 - Beware Of Darkness Metadata track number: 1
3-01 - All Things Must Pass (Demo) Metadata track number: 1
4-01 - Run Of The Mill (Demo) Metadata track number: 1
5-01 - Isn't It A Pity_ (Take 14) Metadata track number: 1

to this:

101 - I'd Have You Anytime Metadata track number: 101
201 - Beware Of Darkness Metadata track number: 201
301 - All Things Must Pass (Demo) Metadata track number: 301
401 - Run Of The Mill (Demo) Metadata track number: 401
501 - Isn't It A Pity_ (Take 14) Metadata track number: 501

and I used the same method with all the other tracks from each of the five discs.

SYNC now displays all the tracks in the correct order from each disc, 1 - 5! Woo hoo! The only problem is that I had to change the file name numbers manually. A bit of a pain, but not that bad. For the metadata changes, I used mp3tag, which is great for bulk changes to metadata.

For muti-disc albums with all tracks in numerical order, like the example above ("01 - Track 1" to 70 - Track 70,"), change metadata only in the first 9 tracks from this:

01 - Track 1 Metadata track number: 1
02 - Track 2 Metadata track number: 2
03 - Track 3 Metadata track number: 3
04 - Track 4 Metadata track number: 4
05 - Track 5 Metadata track number: 5
up to
09 - Track 9 Metadata track number: 9

to this:

01 - Track 1 Metadata track number: 01
02- Track 2 Metadata track number: 02
03 - Track 3 Metadata track number: 03
04 - Track 4 Metadata track number: 04
05 - Track 5 Metadata track number: 05
up to
09 - Track 9 Metadata track number: 09

Boom! Now they play in order! It's something called a "leading zero" that needs to be added because of how SYNC sorts tracks - something about "lexicographically" instead of alphabetically or numerically. Some computer person can explain this. All I know is that it works.

For albums of 100 or more tracks, sequenced 1-100+ (without disc numbers in front):

Simple: Add TWO leading zeros to tracks 1 through 9, then ONE leading zero to tracks 11 through 99.

For albums of 1000 or more tracks, sequenced 1-1,00+ (Wow! That would be a lot of discs!):

Simple: Add THREE leading zeros to tracks 1 through 9, then TWO leading zeros to tracks 11 through 99, and then ONE leading zero to tracks 100 through 999.

For albums of 10,000 or more tracks... OK, let's not get crazy!

If this helps even one person, I'm glad I took the time to write this up. It's been making me crazy for a long time.

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[Jtbuster]

Most excellent write up.

 

[ArthurDOB]

Most excellent write up.

Thanks! I wanted to save someone else the headache I had about this.

 

[jnboyle671]

Thanks! I have had the same issue with the "browsing unavailable while indexing device" delay conundrum. Our Kia and Hyundai hybrids never took that long to sort all of the songs & albums on my personal USB drives. The numbering issue is annoying, especially if the songs aren't numbered by the original source; then they seem to play in alphabetical order instead.
FYI: We use flash drives for music entertainment whenever we're traveling out of the local area. Plus I got very tired of having to call Sirius XM to negotiate a better deal on their 5-6 month service plans when we only listened to a few of their stations anyway.

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