Lostsurfing919

How do I use the shaker 500 mp3 cd feature?
what kind of disc do i use?
Please help me[:-]

281GT

Just use your computer to burn a data disc with MP3 files on it. Depending on the bit rate you will be able to get 8 - 10 hours of music on a single disc.

Lostsurfing919

I tryed that it got stuck on songs and kept skipping!

281GT

There could be a couple of different problems. Make sure you are using good quality blanks. Try the disc in another computer or portable MP3 player to be sure your disc is good. If the disc plays ok in other machines then, unfortunately you have a bad Shaker 500. From what I've seen quite a few people have had problems with the Shaker systems. At any rate, if your disc plays ok in at least two other machines it's a safe bet the disc is good and the problem lies with the Shaker head unit. That being the case you will need to get the unit replaced under warranty. The warranty replacement unit is a newer revision so Ford is aware of the problem.

SilverR1_04

make sure you have a decent bitrate also, my first disc had songs with a low bitrate that would skip or not play at all

281GT

He makes a good point. If the Shaker is designed to accomodate only bitrates above a certain level there could be problems. Also a low bitrate will produce poor quality sound. 128 is all you need though. This will give very good sound. Anything more and you will just make the file size uneccesarily large.

Professor Wizard

I have the 500...

I create my MP3 CD's buy doing nothing more then making a DATA CD and copying the MP3's off of my hard drive onto the CD. My CD's are cheap bulkrate CD's.

My current CD has 80 Songs on it and they are a mix of 128 and 256 BR files...

Everything plays perfectly, and the display works with every song. However I sure with the display would scroll like it does on radio stations instead of making you mash the Text Button to read the rest of a line.

BigDawg

(This applies to the Shaker 1000 as well, of course...)

The Shaker is VERY picky about the CD itself on which you recorded the MP3s. I have discovered that any fingerprints, small smudges or scratches will make the player skip. With a full fingerprint smudge, it even rejects the disk, ejecting it with a "Bad CD" message in the text screen. With audio CDs, it is not nearly as picky. Keep the disk clean, or clean it before you insert it. Once in the 6-CD changer, it stays protected.

When copying MP3s to your blank CD, make sure that you specify "Data Disk" and not "Audio Disk" if/when your computer gives you that option. In Windows, if you select "Copy to AUDIO CD," Windows Media Player opens and will convert the files to audio format. Then, you essentially get a duplicate of the original CD (i.e., only one album, more or less, per CD blank). Copying the MP3 files as if making a simple data disk, I have been getting five or six albums to a burned blank. With the 6-CD changer, it is like having 30-36 CDs in the changer at one time!

I generally put each album into a separate "folder" on the CD. That way, I can use the "Folder" option on the Shaker, as well as the "Track" option. In "Folder" mode, the Shaker plays the tracks in that folder, and treats each folder as if it was a separate CD. In "Track" mode, the Shaker ignores the folders, and treats the CD as if it was a 70+ tracked CD. This is great if you use the "Shuffle" function, since "Shuffle" will only shuffle and play one CD at a time, fully, before it moves to the next. In "Folder" mode, it will stay within the same folder until it has played them all; but in "Track" mode, it will ignore the folders and shuffle all of the tracks on the disk regardless of the folder.

"Track" and "Folder" options can be set with the menu button, but are useful (and accessible) only when you have the MP3 data disk showing. "Shuffle" on on a radio button, useful and accessible only when in CD mode (MP3 or audio format).

The Shaker will recognize the disk as an MP3 data disk, and recognize regular audio disks as such. You can put both MP3s and regular audio disks in the 6-CD changer at the same time.