IPod / ITunes = love from TrueBlueAggie

[True Blue Aggie]

Not sure who all has one, but I love mine. Got the 4gb nano at christmas and started shifting all my files over to it. And in the last two weeks, I started getting used to finding all the different music I want thru ITunes. Love the preview feature on the songs and records listed....plus the new release list is easy to review....

Next mod on the list is the direct connect module, to plug the ipod into the truck. That should make roadtrips just perfect.....

[Silver_2000]

what direct connect module diod you find ?

[skalywags]

Not sure who all has one, but I love mine. Got the 4gb nano at christmas and started shifting all my files over to it. And in the last two weeks, I started getting used to finding all the different music I want thru ITunes. Love the preview feature on the songs and records listed....plus the new release list is easy to review....

Next mod on the list is the direct connect module, to plug the ipod into the truck. That should make roadtrips just perfect.....
I have the Alpine interface set up in my truck, with a 20 GB Ipod. I have 4228 songs on it right now. the great hing is you could drive forever and not hear th esame thing, and when you want to change just go back to the computer. There is also this thing called a phat noise that have for some VW's, Audi's BMW's, that also has a Kenwood counterpart. it's a hard drive set up for cars in configurations up to 100gb.
I figured my 4000+ songs is like having about 300 cd changer. not bad, since it sits in the little pocket under my head unit.

[Silver_2000]

I still have the stock headunit

i just plugged the ipod into the Xbox 360 for the first time
Boy is that a sweet way to get the ipod connected to the stereo ...
Finally getting the polk audio sub working .. :evil

Im sure my neighbors will enjoy it too....:evil :evil :evil

[True Blue Aggie]

http://www.logjamelectronics.com/ipodford.html

here is where I found it...

[Silver_2000]

I guess you bought the PIE unit ?

I have a radio out of a van in mine now so Ill have to get the radio series number and check it

I was thinking about stashing the ipod in the litle pocket in front of my right knee

Doug

[dboat]

I'd be interested in what you guys finally do on this one.. I have a Mach MP3 in my dash and this would augment the 6 disc player and the mp3 player in the unit.. I do carry an XM Roady on road trips too.
How hard would it be to do the hookup?
Dana

[Silver_2000]

The hookup is easy IF you have the right connector on the back
They use the CD changer connector

[dboat]

thanks.
I guess I will have to figure out what I have and cross walk it over..
the connection isnt too expensive.
Dana

[skalywags]

thanks.
I guess I will have to figure out what I have and cross walk it over..
the connection isnt too expensive.
Dana
they have interface modules, without using FM, that will hook an Ipod to the Ford Stereo. Today was the first trip with my Alpine, Ipod set up. 3 hrs of driving, listened to a small piece of what's loaded.
I did learn something too. Not sure if it is just the Alpine Interface. But when I hooked it up the EQ in the IPOD was set to Rock, it made my system sound like crap. I turned the EQ off on the Ipod, it sounds great! Also the Shuffle on the Alpine you have to set it each time, but the Ipod can be set to shuffle, and it shuffles all the time. It's nice not having to carry Cd's anymore

[dboat]

they have interface modules, without using FM, that will hook an Ipod to the Ford Stereo. Today was the first trip with my Alpine, Ipod set up. 3 hrs of driving, listened to a small piece of what's loaded.
I did learn something too. Not sure if it is just the Alpine Interface. But when I hooked it up the EQ in the IPOD was set to Rock, it made my system sound like crap. I turned the EQ off on the Ipod, it sounds great! Also the Shuffle on the Alpine you have to set it each time, but the Ipod can be set to shuffle, and it shuffles all the time. It's nice not having to carry Cd's anymore

:tu:
might have to drop you a PM if I need some help.. ok?

Dana

[BC Lightning]

That hook up looks pretty sweet. I have the 60GB IPOD Photo and have already hit over 40 gigs of music. :eek:

I found this for those of us with MOTO RAZR phones

http://motorola.car-kit.com/technologies/motorola.asp

Its actually bluetooth so it will work for tons of phones

[Silver_2000]

That hook up looks pretty sweet. I have the 60GB IPOD Photo and have already hit over 40 gigs of music. :eek:

I found this for those of us with MOTO RAZR phones http://motorola.car-kit.com/Configurator/Base_Unit.asp

Link takes me to select phone page..

Post the name of the cradle

[skalywags]

:tu:
might have to drop you a PM if I need some help.. ok?
Dana
Sure! I'm loving this thing now that I have the bugs worked out. It wasn't that hard to do, either. If you do this like I said make sure you have the EQ off when plugged in. That is the most impotant thing I can suggest. Otherwise it sounds like crap. Those subs from Bobby (RF Phase 3) are sounding sweet now, too!

[BC Lightning]

edited above post

[dboat]

Background
I changed my head unit to a MachMP3 unit several years ago (came out of a Mustang). The reason is that I didnt need a cassette player and wanted to be able to play MP3's at the time. Furthermore, living in Dallas, I wanted a head unit that looked stock, so that freakin' thieves wouldnt be too tempted to bust open my truck to get to it vs an aftermarket stereo. I still have the 6 disk changer behind the seat. I have already upgraded the amp and speakers in my truck, but no sub, the speakers I have are pretty good. However, I got the wife a 30Gig Ipod for Valentines Day and now am thinking of getting one for myself to use. Its a heck of a lot easier to use one of those than carry any CD's in the truck.
So, I understand that you can directly hook up an Ipod to our stereos and control them from the stereo? Also, could I use the connection that goes to the 6 disc unit for this connection? Where are people putting their Ipod when they are doing this? (I assume in the drink holder?) Do you have a wire hanging down in back that you grab and plug into the Ipod (not very appealing but understandable, I do like things neat and orderly).. So I am resurrecting this thread, after looking over at F150 and NLOC to see if there is anyone here with a solution.

Thanks
Dana

[skalywags]

from what I've seen you have a few options - I have seen some kit, conversion what ever yo call it at Best Buy that you can hook your IPOD to the factory stereo, and I'm pretty sure the radio controls it. Crutchfiled.com has it, too, I think. (here it is - http://www.crutchfield.com/S-4JAWhpkkg7x/cgi-bin/ProdGroup.asp?g=227450&avf=Y)

Or look for one of these - Phatnoise. My son has one in his Jetta, it a 20 gb hard drive that mounts just like a 6 cd changer. I was told they make them for evry car. It controls thru the radio, tells you what bad you are at when searching, and they have 20gb up to 100 gb set ups. His cost about $170 from ebay, new. here is one for Ford - http://www.phatnoise.com/products/digitalmediaplayers/pn_phatbox.php?selectedMake=Ford.
It's pricier, but look on Ebay. The VW one was supposed to be more, too.

[Silver_2000]

Well I was on a road trip recently and discovered my belkin FM transmitter for my ipod had **** the bed. I bought a little tiny one from some unknown brand and it didn't work - then I went and returned it and found one that was made by Monster and it also charged the Ipod - Its the BEST damned FM transmitter I have found ... I set it on a station recently and drove for 7 hours back to Dallas and it worked the whole way on the same station and sounded good. When I got here I turned off the Monster thing and realized that the station I was using was in use in Dallas by a real radio station ... The fact that it some how didn't bleed thru impressed me - When I tried to find another good station to use it took me a couple tries before I found one with no background noise but I found one... Trouble is the Monster thing ( Like all, monster products ) is expensive .. think it was 79.00

I'm seriously considering looking into the cable mount that Dana is talking about - Since the 2004 has the under dash pocket of the 99's I'm thinking about mounting the Ipod there...

[dboat]

I would like to kee this thread going until we have a really good solution that someone has done and installed.. I am not keen on the FM transmitter. I would rather have the direct hookup..

[dboat]

The Phatnoise is more than I want to spend and the Ipod is more portable but its a great solution for someone. the real issue for me is making sure I get the correct cable hookup since I have the Mustang radio and not the stock unit in the truck..

Dana

[Silver_2000]

The Phatnoise is more than I want to spend and the Ipod is more portable but its a great solution for someone. the real issue for me is making sure I get the correct cable hookup since I have the Mustang radio and not the stock unit in the truck..

Dana

Dana from my experience with the OEM sat radio - its all about the connector on the back - what kind of connector and how much of it the radio supports - so to find the right match for your truck you will be shopping for connectors for a mustang - Make sense ?

Doug

[Tex Arcana]

I'd be interested in what you guys finally do on this one.. I have a Mach MP3 in my dash and this would augment the 6 disc player and the mp3 player in the unit.. I do carry an XM Roady on road trips too.
How hard would it be to do the hookup?
Dana

Does your unit "See" the changer behind the seats?

[Tex Arcana]

I tried the Belkin transmitter off my laptop using WinAmp/TCMP, but it sounded bad. I thought the '04 L dash unit would play MP3's, but it doesn't; on top of that, 30+gigs of music can't fit on an iPod (not to mention I dont' mess with those much to begin with). It's a nice idea, but 4gb is not enough. What would be real cool is one of those music kegs...;)

[skalywags]

if you look, unless the VW ones are that much different, His was only like $175, or what ever I pposted. I know all said with shippping, install kit my son's Phat noise was less that $200. My other son has an Ipod, with one of those radio things. Says it sucks - It's in an '05 Mustang GT. My Alpine set up with the 20 gb Ipod has been great! 4400 songs and counting.

my set up is Alpine 9853 headunit, Boston Acoustic SL83 (I think) door speakers, Alpine Type R in the back (run off the head unit to fill in), two RF Phase 3 subs (from Bobby Wade), and an RF P4004 amp. I love this thing.

For the Ford hook up with Ipod, did you look up that link on Crutchfield. I know the one at Best buy is like $119, or something like that. It looked to work with the Mach sound sytem, too.

[Silver_2000]

I tried the Belkin transmitter off my laptop using WinAmp/TCMP, but it sounded bad. I thought the '04 L dash unit would play MP3's, but it doesn't; on top of that, 30+gigs of music can't fit on an iPod (not to mention I dont' mess with those much to begin with). It's a nice idea, but 4gb is not enough. What would be real cool is one of those music kegs...;)

Tex - It depends on the IPOD - I have an old school ( pre ipod video ) Photo Ipod that holds 30 gb - I have over 60 gb of music but only about 10 thats worth putting on the ipod -

Another cool use for an ipod is for use as off site backup. If you think about it the Ipod is a hard drive - the new ones are SOOO big that you will never fill it - you could use a gb or 2 of space as a place to backup your critical data. Its not perfect - you could lose the ipod and then the data but who would look on the stolen ipod for anything besides music. And if you have a small business and an Ipod you are likely connecting the ipod to your PC on a regular basis and are disconnecting it to take it elsewhere - it qualifies and quick easy off site back up...
Edit - And a way to write off the ipod
Doug

[99WhiteBeast]

I'm a little late to the game (still doing Mini Disc's for business travel) but thinking of going this route.

Can someone explain the process of getting my current music (CD's, MD's,MP3's) to the device?

I'm guessing everything has to be ripped to MP3 or some other supported format then copied over to the IPOD??

That seems like a very laborious task with well over 200 disks.

[dboat]

Does your unit "See" the changer behind the seats?

yes it does without any problem.. you toggle between the indash and changer behind the seat by hitting the CD button..

[dboat]

Tex - It depends on the IPOD - I have an old school ( pre ipod video ) Photo Ipod that holds 30 gb - I have over 60 gb of music but only about 10 thats worth putting on the ipod -
Doug

I got Kim the 30g Ipod with video for Valentines Day.. they also have a 60 gig unit too.. so there is plenty of room for my music. In fact, I am watching an old Woody Woodpecker cartoon on it right now.. cool

Dana

[BC Lightning]

.. they also have a 60 gig unit too.. so there is plenty of room for my music.

thats the one I have, love it, I've got close to 50 gigs of music on my iPod

[Silver_2000]

I'm a little late to the game (still doing Mini Disc's for business travel) but thinking of going this route.

Can someone explain the process of getting my current music (CD's, MD's,MP3's) to the device?

I'm guessing everything has to be ripped to MP3 or some other supported format then copied over to the IPOD??

That seems like a very laborious task with well over 200 disks.

Well you could pay your kids or someone elses to feed the cds in to itunes or you could send them off to a service that will do it for you - They will even load them on a new ipod for you

http://www.mpegload.com/ for example will do it for a buck + each

[skalywags]

I'm a little late to the game (still doing Mini Disc's for business travel) but thinking of going this route.

Can someone explain the process of getting my current music (CD's, MD's,MP3's) to the device?

I'm guessing everything has to be ripped to MP3 or some other supported format then copied over to the IPOD??

That seems like a very laborious task with well over 200 disks.
You just bring up Itunes, or use some other software and copy your cd's to the computer. It's easy. And then you could always download from Itunes, Limewire, or where-ever you want. I thought I'd never use Itunes. i was rong. they have stuff I couldn't find anywhere.

Her's another question as far as downloading music - Why is it so bad to download music (depriving the artists of money, I understand that), but at the sametime places like CD World, CD Warehouse, can sell the crap out of used ones. the only one benefitting there is the store. they don't hand over any money to the artists.

As far as my Ipod, it's the prevideo one. I have no use for the video, and I like I've said before I 4300+ songs on it, and still have room for a 1000 or so more. That's the favorite part of my stereo set-up.

[Tex Arcana]

Tex - It depends on the IPOD - I have an old school ( pre ipod video ) Photo Ipod that holds 30 gb - I have over 60 gb of music but only about 10 thats worth putting on the ipod -

Another cool use for an ipod is for use as off site backup. If you think about it the Ipod is a hard drive - the new ones are SOOO big that you will never fill it - you could use a gb or 2 of space as a place to backup your critical data. Its not perfect - you could lose the ipod and then the data but who would look on the stolen ipod for anything besides music. And if you have a small business and an Ipod you are likely connecting the ipod to your PC on a regular basis and are disconnecting it to take it elsewhere - it qualifies and quick easy off site back up...
Edit - And a way to write off the ipod
Doug

I had forgotten about those older ones... I remember when they first came out, there were kids going into Best Buys and CompUSA's, and would swipe all sorts of Mac software.

[Tex Arcana]

I'm a little late to the game (still doing Mini Disc's for business travel) but thinking of going this route.

Can someone explain the process of getting my current music (CD's, MD's,MP3's) to the device?

I'm guessing everything has to be ripped to MP3 or some other supported format then copied over to the IPOD??

That seems like a very laborious task with well over 200 disks.

Welcome to my world... I think Iv'e got over 240 discs, not to mention the tens of gigs that I downloaded. :tu:

Go to www.freerip.com, and download it. Small, free, and easy, it'll rip all your stuff to either MP3 or *.ogg format.

[Tex Arcana]

yes it does without any problem.. you toggle between the indash and changer behind the seat by hitting the CD button..

Yeah, I caught that already.. just making sure you had. :tu:

[Silver_2000]

Welcome to my world... I think Iv'e got over 240 discs, not to mention the tens of gigs that I downloaded. :tu:

Go to www.freerip.com (http://www.freerip.com), and download it. Small, free, and easy, it'll rip all your stuff to either MP3 or *.ogg format.

Unless its much faster than itunes i would just use Itunes -

[Tex Arcana]

Unless its much faster than itunes i would just use Itunes -

It's fast, at 128K to MP3, it'll rip a CD in about 5 minutes, uses FreeDB for the song info, and allows you filename formatting flexibility, and choice of FreeDB information inclusion. :tu: Plus, it's free. :D

[dboat]

It's fast, at 128K to MP3, it'll rip a CD in about 5 minutes, uses FreeDB for the song info, and allows you filename formatting flexibility, and choice of FreeDB information inclusion. :tu: Plus, it's free. :D

Tex, just jumped over there for a moment and most of the posts were ripping freerip, calling it a freeripoff... problems with this and that,, crappy encoder.. sorry, but that is what I first saw over there.. didnt sign up or log in..

Dana

[Silver_2000]

It's fast, at 128K to MP3, it'll rip a CD in about 5 minutes, uses FreeDB for the song info, and allows you filename formatting flexibility, and choice of FreeDB information inclusion. :tu: Plus, it's free. :D

So you keep saying its free - itunes is free - it will rip in 5 min and doesnt have the issues that Dana saw...

itunes does all the tag info as well

[Tex Arcana]

Tex, just jumped over there for a moment and most of the posts were ripping freerip, calling it a freeripoff... problems with this and that,, crappy encoder.. sorry, but that is what I first saw over there.. didnt sign up or log in..

Dana

I confess, I am surprised, I've been using this for 5 years now, and haven't had a problem with it. :confused:

[Tex Arcana]

So you keep saying its free - itunes is free - it will rip in 5 min and doesnt have the issues that Dana saw...

itunes does all the tag info as well

I wasn't aware that iTunes was free, that it only works on iTunes music, which what I was led to beleive.

[skalywags]

nope! works on everything. I just got done copying my new Jerry garcia and Course of Empire cd's. less than 5 minutes.